Leonardo

Leonardo Da Vinci’s Background
Leonard Da Vinci was born in the small Italian village of Vinci, near Florence on the 15th of April 1452. As a child he had very little schooling and was mostly self-taught. Sometime between the age of 15 and 17 he moved to Florence with his father.   Here he trained as a painter to the leading artist in Florence, Andrea del Verrocchi.  
Even though Da Vinci’s artistic talents were soon better than his teachers, Verrocchi was a major influence in his life.   He helped form Da Vinci’s artistic style with his attention to detail in expressing the liveliness of the human body.   After completing his training he stayed and worked as Verrocchi assistant.  

Da Vinci believed painting was a science and he applied this thinking to his art to make his painting look life like or real.   To do this he modified his painting style by blending one area of colour to another so there were no sharp outlines or edges, this is called sfumato.   He also chose oil paint over that used by his teacher tempera (powered colour mixed with egg yolk). In 1472 Leonard joined the Painter’s Guild in Florence where he came in contact with many other famous artists including Michelangelo.

In 1478 Leonardo set up his own studio and was commissioned to paint and sculpture for many dukes and kings in Florence and Milan.   Da Vinci influenced artists with his new ideas to renaissance painting.   Linear perspective was used by early renaissance artist, Da Vinci’s painting show this impression of depth but he added to this by joining perspective of clarity (distant objects look less distinct) and perspective of colour (distant objects look more muted in colour) to his work.   He wrote about these techniques in his notebook.   These techniques gave his paint a strong sense of movement.  
Leonardo died May 2nd 1519 in Amboise, France.   His strong curiosity was key to his artistic work and although many of his paintings were left unfinished, he has influenced many artists.