Style

Style and Evolution

By Molly Doak

Influences

Anatomy

Botany and Landscape

Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Anatomy

Leonardo was a pioneer in this field, performing autopsies and dissections of corpses at a time when such empirical methods were frowned upon.

Leonardo recognized that in order to depict the human body accurately, one must first understand its underlying structures and organizing principles. Anatomy was, in a way, the basis from which all other observations flowed. 

Three anatomical studies: one on a larger scale, of a man's right arm and shoulder, showing muscles; three studies of a right arm; a diagram to illustrate pronation and supination of the hand.

The Battle of the Anghiari

In 1503 the Signoria commissioned Leonardo to paint the battle of against the Milanese on one side and in 1504 they commissioned Michangelo to paint the battle of Cascina on the other side. The Signoria pitted pitted Leonardo and Michaneglo against one another in a clear attempt to urge each to his creative limits and at the same time to push for a speedy completion of the project .They were successful in the first respect but not the second, for Leonardo completed only a small part of the actual fresco. The section of the Leonardo’s battle of the Anghiari shown here is a copy by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640).  

Realistically rendered costume and musculature of the horses and bodies twisting violently in an intense knot of energy is exhibited in The Battle of Anghiari. Despite the frenzied action, the figures form a tightly structured unit, in which arms and swords link with one another, providing both a stable composition and movement through it. 

Botany and Landscapes

Leonardo’s observations of the natural world allowed for his understanding of illumination and darkness apparent in nature which led to his mastery of atmospheric perspective.

In fact, his extensive studies of moving water led to his discovery of the Law of Continuity-there is no break in nature and nothing passes from one state to another without passing through all the intermediate states-which is still used in modern science.

 

 

Studies of flowers and landscapes from Leonardo's notebooks.

 Madonna and child with St Anne

(1505) 5’7’’x 4’2’’ oil on canvas

   

Abandoning the uniformly precise rendition of details characteristic of much 15^th century art, Leonardo expands his astute observations on the perception of color and light under differing atmospheric conditions carefully recorded in his notebooks. At the foot of the painting he describes every rocky striation and pebble but as he moves to the back, his brushstrokes soften and then dissolve into light saturated mist enveloping Alpine peaks. He also enlarges the scale of his figures so they themselves, gracefully and dynamically interlaced with one another, form a mountainous mass.  

Leonardo traveled widely for Charles d’Amboise between Florence and Milan. During this period he also began his first series of systematic notes on geology and atmospheric perspective as well as the studies of the Alps as seen in Madonna and Child with St Anne. 

Physical Sciences and Mathematics 

Drawings of Leonardo's studies of Optics from his notebooks

                       Study of a Flying Machine      

                                      

Notes on the Position of a Bird in Flight in Relationship to the Wind 

 Leonardo’s notebooks were full of designs for fortifications and machinery that were potentially of use to the Milanese state. Leonardo turned his intelligence to new matters, including the possibility of human flight which distinguished him from his contemporaries. His design for an enormous bowl shaped helicopter-his notes indicate he was imagining a structure 40 feet across with a wingspan twice that size-depends on a man standing in the middle of the machine moving treadles with his head as well as his feet. Unaware of the principles of airflow and lift, in spite of his careful studies of the flight of birds, Leonardo was unable to design a workable vehicle. Nonetheless, his sheer inventiveness and knowledge of pulleys and gears, essential to his work as a military consultant, gave him a technological base to build off of.

Influenced

Leonardo was one of the greatest minds of Italian Renaissance and his influence on painting was evident in the works of other great artists from Raphael to Michelangelo. While Leonardo influence, directly and indirectly, all paintings, his notebooks had enormous influence on artists as well, specifically on Carlo Urbino.

Codex Huygens:
                         Proportions of the Human Body                           

    Form and Structure of the Human Body

                       

   Form and Structure of the Human Body

Form and Structure of the Human Body

The Codex Huygens is a Renaissance manuscript for a treatise on painting closely related to Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519). Its author has been identified as the North Italian artist Carlo Urbino (ca. 1510/20–after 1585), who must have been familiar with Leonardo's notes before they were dispersed. Some of the drawings are faithful copies of now lost originals by Leonardo. Others, like the Vitruvian Man, are related to Leonardo but independent interpretations in their own right.

The book has 5 sections:

1.Form and Structure of the Human Body

2.Movements of the Human Body

3.Transformations

4.Proportions of the Human Body and Proportions of the Horse

5.Perspective

 Carlo Urbino was an accomplished artist accredited with the decoration of a Chapel in Santa Maria della Passione. Later in his career he worked with Bernardino Campi  in the Transfiguration (1565) in the church of San Fedele in Milan. 

Evolution

Ginevra de’ Benci  

1478-80 oil, tempera on wood

This was Leonardo’s first secular painting as well as his first female portrait. 

The painting was commissioned by Bernardo Bembi, the Venetian ambassador to Venze with whom Ginevra had a platonic affair. It marks the wedding of Ginevra to Luigi Bernardi di Lapo Nicolini.

It breaks away from the pictorial conventions of Verrocchio’s work shop and is the first portrait where the subject turns toward the viewer. However, the painting was damaged by fire and water which eliminated the bottom third of the painting including Ginevra’s hands. The Juniper tree surrounding her is a symbol of female virtue. Juniper, which in Italian is called ginepra, may also have been a play on her name. The fine botanical details of the tree and the atmospheric perspective of the landscape behind her as well as the inherent personality of Gineva are typical of Leonardo. However, the obvious flatness of the painting indicates an early phase in Leonardo’s artistic evolution.

Adoration of the Magi(1481) 8' 1" x 8' 0"

Pictured above is Leonardo’s first major commission, Adoration of the Magi, for the Augustinians of the monastery of San Donato at Scopet, just outside Florence. Although Leonardo left the work unfinished with just the under drawing and initial ground painted in, it reveals his mastery of composition and form. 

The painting shows the Virgin and Child seated, surrounded by the entourage of the Magi, who kneel to present their gifts. The head of the virgin is at the center of the composition, and her body marks the apex of a triangle created by the kneeling figures. Despite the active, gesturing poses of the other figures and the subordinate scenes in the distance, the main protagonists are locked into a stable compositional order which focuses the viewer’s attention on them. In addition to the diagonal movement into the composition, the figures themselves contribute, through their poses, to the illusion of space. The virgins head and body are composed of a series of oval shapes, nesting one inside another-head inside upper torso inside the curve of the arms. Each of these shapes turns in opposing, tilting directions, creating not only a convincing rounded figure, but also a sense of energy in the surrounding space.

Although Sfumato is technically a finishing operation, the underdrawing of the Adoration indicates that even at the early stages of the painting Leonardo was preparing to use this this revolutionary technique.

Symbolism: The palm tree in the center has associations with the Virgin Mary, partly due to the phrase 'You are stately as a palm tree' from the Song of Solomon, which is believed to prefigure her. Another aspect of the palm tree can be the usage of the palm tree as a symbol of victory for ancient Rome, whereas in Christianity it is a representation of martyrdom—triumph over death—so in conclusion we can say that the palm in general represents triumph. The other tree in the painting is from the carob family, the seeds from the tree are used as a unit of measurement. They measure valuable stones and jewels. This tree and its seeds are associated with crowns suggesting Christ as the king of kings or the Virgin as the future Queen of heaven, also that this is nature's gift to the new born Christ.

COMPARISON 

Sandro Botticelli, Adoration of the Magi  (1475–1476) 3' 8" x 4' 5 tempera

A contemporary painting of the same subject by Sandro Botticelli is much more typical of its time.

Similarly to Leonardo, Botticelli was a student of Verrocchio. Botticelli also orders his composition along a carefully plotted triangle, in this case reinforced by the beams of the decaying classical architecture of the stable- a reference to the passing of the old law into the new with the birth of Christ.

However, each of the figures are linearly and clearly delineated, separated from its adjacent form, with crisp outlines separating light form dark with, the traditional sense of disegno; drawing with line retaining its power to suggest solid forms. The clarity of color and landscape look like a stage backdrop rather than a continuous extension into space. Along with the artificiality of the background the Virgin has an unnaturally elongated torso and the Child lacks a real sense of solid form. 

Mona Lisa  

(1503–1517) 77 cm × 53 cm Oil on poplar

Leonardo’s stylist evolution reaches an unmeasurable peak with the Mona Lisa.

Leonardo used a pyramid design to place the woman simply and calmly in the space of the painting. Her folded hands form the front corner of the pyramid. Her breast, neck and face glow in the same light that models her hands. The light gives the variety of living surfaces an underlying geometry of spheres and circles. Leonardo referred to a seemingly simple formula for seated female figure: the images of seated Madonna, which were widespread at the time. He effectively modified this formula in order to create the visual impression of distance between the sitter and the observer. The armrest of the chair functions as a dividing element between Mona Lisa and the viewer.

The woman sits markedly upright with her arms folded, which is also a sign of her reserved posture. Only her gaze is fixed on the observer and seems to welcome them to this silent communication. Since the brightly lit face is practically framed with various much darker elements (hair, veil, shadows), the observer's attraction to it is brought to even greater extent. The woman appears alive to an unusual measure, which Leonardo achieved by his sfumato method, not to draw the outlines, specifically in her two facial  features: the corners of the mouth, and the corners of the eyes.