Mona Lisa

            For this art essay I decided to learn and critique on an artist by the name of Leonardo da Vinci. I chose him because I didn't know that much about him and wanted to know why he is so admired and famous? Did he become famous before or after he died? What makes Leonardo unique compared to other artists? I also wanted to learn more about the Mona Lisa. Why is it such famous and valuable painting for just being a picture of a lady? Is the Mona Lisa the Leonardo's only famous painting? All of these questions I hoped to be able to answer.
             Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452 and died in 1519. Painting and being an artist is in the da Vinci genes. When Leonardo was just fifteen years old his artistic career had begun. He was an apprentice for a famous artist by the name of Verrochio. While working for Verrochio he did little things in the background of paintings and eventually became an even better painter than Verrochio. From here he became famous in his early twenties. He wasn't only a painter, but also an inventor. Inventing things like flying machines, geometry, mechanics, municipal construction, canals and architecture. Leonardo da Vinci liked to use two main types of techniques in his paintings; sfumato and chiaroscuro. Sfumato is a technique that artists use to make smoky overall haze effect to a painting using a lightly tainted varnish. Leonardo da Vinci liked to use this technique because dusk was his most favorite time of the day and during dusk usually came fog. The other technique he liked to use was chiaroscuro. Chiaroscuro is a technique that an artist uses to define an object through contrast of light and shadowing. He liked to use this technique because it made a picture look more realistic and lifelike. Leonardo da Vinci was the first artist to study the human anatomy. This in return he would use in his paintings to give proportion body parts on human figures.