The Renaissance refers to the classical culture of ancient Greece and Rome, which was once highly prosperous, which was stifled and destroyed in the Middle Ages, and regained attention and was "revived" during this period. This phenomenon of reviving classical culture gradually spread to many European countries, forming a widespread Renaissance movement and producing a brilliant new European culture and art.
Engels said in his discussion of the Renaissance: This is a great and progressive change that mankind has never seen, a giant who needs and produces giants - in the age of giants in terms of thinking ability, enthusiasm and character, in the age of versatile and learned giants. In Italy, the best representative of the artistic level of the Renaissance was the three Florentine artists, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo. And Leonardo da Vinci was the first man of the Renaissance era.
The life of Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci was born in Anchiano, near the town of Vinci between Lorenza and Pisa, Italy, he was the illegitimate son of Leonardo da Vinci, a wealthy Florentine legal notary, and his mother Trina, a handmaid in a rural hotel near the town of Vinci, lived with his grandfather in Fort Vinci in the Dosgar hills.
Leonardo da Vinci grew up beautiful, strong, loved to sing, could play the lute, compose lyrics and music, and at the age of 5 he could draw a portrait of his mother on the beach from memory, showing his painting genius. In 1468 the family moved to Florence, and in 1469 his father apprenticed him to the workshop of the famous painter, sculptor and architect Verrocchio. Verrocchio is an artist who engages in artistic exploration and practice using the methods of practical sciences such as mathematics, perspective and anatomy. Leonardo da Vinci not only studied painting here, but also cultivated an interest in scientific research. This laid the foundation for him to become a painting wizard and a researcher of various technologies.
Portrait of Leonardo da Vinci
Art historians generally consider Leonardo da Vinci's early works to be The Conception Notification and the Portrait of Genefra de Benci. At the end of the 70s, in "The Baptism of Christ" created by the Verrocchio Workshop, he painted the figure of a kneeling angel, showing superior skill beyond that of the teacher. Verrocchio also felt quite ashamed after seeing it.
《Conception Notice》
The Baptism of Christ
In 1480, Leonardo da Vinci already had his own workshop, and in 1481 he accepted orders and began to paint the large altarpiece "The Doctor Comes to Worship". However, the painting was not completed, leaving only a large number of sketches, and the original work now in the Uffizi Gallery was only a painting with a background.
"The Doctor Comes to Worship"
Leonardo da Vinci also painted Madonna of the Rocks, one of his masterpieces from his time in Milan. His fresco The Last Supper for the monastery of Maria Daly Grachi marks the pinnacle of his artistic creation.
During this period, Finch was influenced by his friend Baggiari to study the Perspective of Painting by Biro della Francesca, as well as the painting theory of Leon Battista Alberti. These marked the most mature period of artistic creation in Vinci's first Milan period. Vinci lived in Milan for 17 years, which was the most enjoyable and prolific time he had in his life.
Our Lady of the Rocks, Louvre Museum
The Last Supper
During his time in Milan, Leonardo da Vinci received special courtesy from the Empress of Milan, Leia Grelani. The Empress took from her shoulder a valuable scarf woven of gold and silver silk and draped it over da Vinci's neck and shoulders, and took the laurel crown from Grand Duke Lodovico's secretary, put it on his head, and happily knighted him. This shows not only the respect of the Milanese court for the artist, but also the social status won by his superior intelligence.
In 1508, at the invitation of Charles de Ampos, the French governor in Milan, Vinci returned to Milan until 1513. During his second stay in Milan, in addition to studying the natural sciences, he designed a monument to the French general Terry Marinachio for horseback riding. In terms of painting, Santa Ana and John the Baptist were created during this period. "Santa Ana" is a sketch, and in terms of style, Finch's artistic talent is indisputable, but the smile on the face of the character has lost its original touching power. John the Baptist depicts a long-haired young man with feminine features on his face and hands. Holding the cross in one hand and pointing to the sky in the other, he shows a mood of contemplation and skepticism, reflecting the crisis of humanism and realism.
"Santa Ana"
In 1516, Leonardo da Vinci came to France at the invitation of King Francis I of France. The king placed him in the castle of Kru-Lyussai near the picturesque city of Ampos and awarded him the title of court painter, doubly pampering him. Here, Leonardo da Vinci worked mainly on human anatomy. He died on 2 May 1519 at the age of 67.
Leonardo da Vinci's paintings
Da Vinci's versatility wow his contemporaries. He was a painter, sculptor, architect, musician, anatomist, mathematician, biologist, astronomer, philosopher, etc. His ambition is to do everything, and to do it perfectly. He had envisioned tens of millions of plans, but only a few had been completed. Just as he in the art of painting, because of his pursuit of perfection, he has completed few works, but once completed, it has become a masterpiece.
"Our Lady of the Rocks" is one of the three best preserved representative works so far. It depicts the Virgin and Child family coming to the Jordan River and meeting John, who was preaching there, in a nearby cave. Fincher changes the divine encounter between Jesus and John to two naïve children playing by the water, using a worldly life feeling to express this theme, so that the characters are filled with a kind of natural love. The image centered on the Virgin embodies the great maternal power of the world and fully demonstrates the beauty of human nature. In composition, Finch used a pyramidal composition, which has a sense of stability. The whole painting is based on tan, and the contrast of colors makes the panorama reflect the modeling characteristics of classical beauty. Finch was also the first painter in the 15th century to place figures in the middle of specific landscapes, allowing them to blend in with their environment. This is the original idea of the great painter seeking the unity of typical environment and typical character in his conception.
Our Lady of the Rocks
The Last Supper is based on a verse in Matthew 26, the New Testament, "The Establishment of Holy Communion." One night on Passover, Jesus foresaw the coming of His death and had dinner with His 12 disciples. Jesus said to the disciples, "Verily, I tell you, one of you is going to betray me. When the disciples heard this, they immediately caused an unusual reaction. Leonardo da Vinci deepened the moral of the story from the characteristics of the characters' activities, personalities, emotions and psychological reactions, reflecting the opposition between good and evil through the conflict between Jesus and Judas.
In the last group at the left end of the picture, young Andrei raises his hands in shock; Little Jacob seemed to be comforting him, and at the same time extended his left hand from behind Peter to stop him from being in a hurry; At the back was the young and athletic Matthew, who couldn't help but get up from his seat and lean over to gaze at the unfolding of events. The expressions of Jesus and the twelve disciples are different and varied, making the scene appear dramatic. The age, character and identity of the twelve apostles and the appropriateness of their expressions, which make the characters echo and relate to each other, thus showing that their feelings are not isolated, is one of da Vinci's most successful examples of psychological depictions.
In terms of the spatial treatment of the background, da Vinci used the limited space of the canteen mural to draw the far-reaching sense of the picture with perspective. He correctly calculated the distance from the perspective of the ground, so that the horizontal line coincided with the composition of the characters and tables in the painting, creating a psychological illusion for the viewer.
Part of "The Last Supper"
Leonardo da Vinci explored the mysteries of flat modeling with a scientific approach to understanding the objective world. He studies perspective and anatomy on the real image of the character, immerses himself in the inner activities of people, and describes the various manifestations of people's inner activities on the face. To this end, he drew a large number of sketches and sketches. It is because of this that the success of "Mona Lisa" has been achieved. Mona Lisa successfully portrays the image of an urban propertied woman during the rise of capitalism, the wife of a Florentine furrier who was only 24 years old and had just lost her beloved daughter. In order to make her smile, the painter came up with various methods: ask the musician to play music and sing for her, let the cheerful atmosphere help her smile, although the smile of Mona Lisa on the painting is faint, but you can see the inner pleasure between her eyebrows, a smile seems to have just passed over her face, the corners of the slightly upturned mouth, the stretched smile muscles, let people feel the mood of Madame when she was painted. This calm smile shows the reserved beauty of an ancient woman, and because of the meaning of her smile, many art historians call it the mysterious smile."
"Mona Lisa"
In terms of painting techniques, Finch used the "fade method" to make the figure slightly blurred. This blurred silhouette and soft color technique of blending one shape into another leaves room for imagination.
In terms of background treatment, da Vinci used air perspective to push the cliffs, paths, stone bridges, trees, and flowing water behind to distant depths to highlight the characters. He also treated the background of the two sides of the character in a less symmetrical way: the horizon on the left side of the picture seems to be much lower than the horizon on the right, so that when we look to the left of the frame, the image looks much more upright than when we look at the right side of the frame, causing the picture itself to change.
Even more noteworthy are her hands, which are expressed precisely and plump, completely in line with the anatomy, showing her tenderness and identity.
Mona Lisa's hands
This portrait fully embodies da Vinci's aesthetic taste, spiritual temperament and humanist ideals. It is both a portrait of Mona, Lisa, and the epitome of the ideal woman of the time. The smile at the corner of the mouth is not only a joy and affirmation of life, but also a kind of confusion and sentimentality about the unknowable future. It can be said that it is a psychological portrait of Leonardo da Vinci and all the humanists of the time.
Leonardo da Vinci's view of art
Finch analyzed the relationship between painting and reality based on the view that "all our knowledge comes from perception", pointing out that nature is the source of painting and painting is the imitator of nature. According to the history of the development of painting since ancient Rome, it is pointed out: if the painter takes the method of nature, painting will prosper; If you do not take the law of nature, painting will decline. Philosophical and historically, it shows that painters must take nature as their teacher.
On the one hand, he takes nature as his teacher, on the other hand, he emphasizes the importance of reason, requiring painters to have knowledge of perspective, light and shadow, human anatomy, etc., to guide creation, faithfully reflect the form of all natural things, and combine with rich imagination to create images that are not found in nature.
Leonardo da Vinci's "Saint Gerom"
Madonna of the Rocks not only accurately and vividly depicts the caves and terrain, but also cleverly uses light to make images such as the Virgin the center of vision. The bright sky as the background creates both spatial depth and successfully brings out the main character. The image of the Virgin is the embodiment of maternal love. In "The Last Supper", Fincher fully displays the personality characteristics of each character through the vivid depiction of each character's clothing, expressions, and movements. These are all concrete applications of the above ideas.
Finch divided the perspective of spatial relationships into three branches: line perspective, color perspective, and hidden perspective. After summarizing the achievements of his predecessors in line perspective, he combined many vivid examples to study the influence of air and fog on the color and shape of distant scenes, and proposed the theory of air perspective (that is, color perspective) and hidden perspective.
He pioneered the method of chiaroscuro, that is, the transition from light to dark on the portrait is continuous, like smoke, there is no sharp division. His Mona Lisa and Madonna and Child and Santa Ana are examples of the use of chiaroscuro. Biographer Vasari said that Finch's method of chiaroscuro was a turning point in the art of painting.
Leonardo da Vinci, like many masters of the art of the time, was keen to study the structure of the human body, believing that the human body was the most perfect thing in nature, and anatomy was a necessary thing to truly represent the human form. These theories of human body dynamics had a profound impact on later art theory and time.
Leonardo da Vinci "Flower Stamens", Collection of the Royal Museum of Art, Windsorburg, UK
Leonardo da Vinci, one of the few learned giants in history, was admired by future generations for his achievements and genius, and his artistic peaks made those who came after him even more amazed. As his student Farnchesco Milz said, "Finch's death is a loss to everyone, and the Creator is powerless to mold a man like him."
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