"It is true that I cannot stand my brushes, but I feel that I have offended God and all of mankind by not working as hard at art as I should have.".
Leonardo da Vinci on his deathbed.
.
There are many artists that have become well known over the years such as Vincent van Gogh and Michelangelo, but no artist has accomplished as much as Leonardo da Vinci did in many different fields of artwork and science. Not only is the Mona Lisa the most world renown painting, Leonardo came up with the ideas and drawings of a machine gun, tank, helicopter, and other objects we use today back in the 1400's. He was a man ahead of his time. I never paid much attention to his artwork, but as of late I realized the more you try to understand his artwork, the harder it is to figure out. After looking at the Mona Lisa for a while, I cannot depict what type of feeling or emotion is being displayed. It is almost impossible to tell whether she is happy or sad. I find his artwork truly amazing.
When people hear the name Leonardo da Vinci, they most commonly think of him as a painter. Painting was only a small part of his life; he was also a sculptor, architect, designer, theorist, engineer, scientist, and inventor. Leonardo spent many of his years in Florence and Milan. While in Milan, he became actively involved in military tactics and devices for the city and took up many engineering projects such as canalization and the decoration in the town of Vigevano, a small suburb of Milan. .
I truly believe that painting was not something Leonardo cared about his much as his other practices. Painting for him was merely combining his knowledge of anatomy, dynamics of light, and mathematics into a colleague of colors that capture the imagination of the viewer. His genius was at a level so far beyond his time that I am left breathless by the concepts and theories he established during his life. Leonardo was a charming man, it was said by a contemporary that his "personal beauty could not be exaggerated (MacDonald).