The book begins with Prophecies, followed by the Fables on animals, on lifeless objects, on plants, and the Studies on the Life and Habits of Animals, in which Leonardo presents a curious sequence of animals and their description. It ends with the Jests and Tales and the Final Prophecies. Among these delightful and amusing writings, we find satires, fables, aphorisms, anecdotes, prophetic sayings, and enigmatic statements, ingeniously created or reproduced by the unique mind of Leonardo da Vinci.
Here is a complete picture of the techniques and working philosophy of one of the greatest artistic geniuses of the Renaissance. Assembled by a brilliant scholar from Leonardo's own writings--Notebooks and The Treatise on Painting--as well as his artistic production, the book offers a carefully balanced view of the artistÕs intellectual growth. Drawing on all the relevant writings, and rectifying many errors made by previous scholars, this work differs from earlier studies in its systematic grouping of the passages of Leonardo's writings concerning painting. In organizing the materials, the editor focuses on problems of interpretation; the result is the direct opposite of a simple anthology, offering instead a reconstruction of the underlying meaning of Leonardo's words. For each section, noted French art scholar André Chastel has provided an informative introduction and notes, and substantial bibliographic and reference materials for the book as a whole. More than 125 painstakingly reproduced illustrations are found throughout the text, further enhancing this rich and accessible resourceÑsure to be welcomed by scholars, lay readers, and any admirer of the incomparable Leonardo. Unabridged republication of The Genius of Leonardo da Vinci, originally published by The Orion Press, New York, 1961. Notes. Printed Editions of Leonardo's Writings. Table of Manuscripts. Table of Paintings. Chronological Table. List of Illustrations. References to Entries. Over 125 black-and-white illustrations.
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci Vol-1' is an enlightening collection of writings by the renowned polymath Leonardo da Vinci. In this volume, readers are granted a glimpse into the mind of one of history's greatest geniuses as they explore da Vinci's personal notebooks. The book presents a compilation of da Vinci's observations, ideas, sketches, and reflections on a wide range of subjects. From anatomy and engineering to art and philosophy, da Vinci's writings cover an astounding breadth of knowledge and curiosity. Readers are treated to da Vinci's meticulous studies of the human body, his inventive engineering designs, and his musings on the nature of light, perspective, and aesthetics. The volume provides a fascinating window into da Vinci's creative process and the depth of his intellectual pursuits. It is a treasure trove of insights and inspiration for art enthusiasts, scholars, and anyone intrigued by the boundless curiosity and brilliance of Leonardo da Vinci.
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci Vol-2' is an enlightening collection of writings by the renowned polymath Leonardo da Vinci. The second volume of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks contains a wide range of writings on a variety of topics, including sculpture, architecture, zoology, physiology, medicine, astronomy, geography, naval warfare, swimming, flying machines, mining, music, and more. Leonardo's writings are often accompanied by detailed drawings and diagrams, which provide a fascinating glimpse into his mind and his work. The volume begins with a section on sculpture, in which Leonardo discusses the principles of design and proportion. He also provides detailed instructions on how to create sculptures, including how to model clay, cast bronze, and carve marble. The next section of the volume is devoted to architecture. Leonardo discusses the design of buildings, including churches, palaces, and fortifications. He also provides insights into the principles of engineering and construction.
More than fifteen hundred extracts containing the Renaissance genius' maxims, prophecies, fables, letters, and brilliant observations in architecture, painting, physiology, geography, and other fields
A fascinating collection of writings from the great polymath of the Italian Renaissaince, Leonardo da Vinci. Table of Content: Introduction I Thoughts on Life II Thoughts on Art III Thoughts on Science Bibliographical Note
Musaicum Books presents to you this carefully created volume of "Leonardo da Vinci: Thoughts on Art & Life". This ebook has been designed and formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. Content: Introduction I Thoughts on Life II Thoughts on Art III Thoughts on Science Bibliographical Note Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath whose areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography.
A singular fatality has ruled the destiny of nearly all the most famous of Leonardo da Vinci's works. Two of the three most important were never completed, obstacles having arisen during his life-time, which obliged him to leave them unfinished; namely the Sforza Monument and the Wall-painting of the Battle of Anghiari, while the third—the picture of the Last Supper at Milan—has suffered irremediable injury from decay and the repeated restorations to which it was recklessly subjected during the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. Nevertheless, no other picture of the Renaissance has become so wellknown and popular through copies of every description.
This selection offers a cross-section from the 6,000 surviving sheets that constitute Leonardo's notebooks, including his thoughts on landscape, optics, anatomy, architecture, sculpture, and painting. Fully updated, this new edition includes some 70 line drawings and a Preface by Leonardo expert Martin Kemp.
This volume is intended for all art-lovers and students of art anywhere in the world. Words are not required to describe the beauty of these drawings, their splendour speaks volumes instead. Herein you will find 49 pen and ink illustrations by the Master of all artists - Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519), including a self portrait. A comprehensive introduction to this volume is provided by Charles Lewis Hind founder and editor of The Studio: An Illustrated Magazine of Fine and Applied Art and was later editor of The Academy. The illustrations in this volume are: Profile Of A Warrior Portrait Of Isabella d’Este Study Of An Old Man Study Of Draperies For Kneeling Figures Study Of A Bacchus Head Of A Man Battle Between Horsemen And Monsters Woman Seated On Ground And Child Kneeling Studies Of Heads Youth On Horseback Studies For The Equestrian Statue Of Francesco Sforza The Virgin, St. Anne And Infant Studies Of Children The Combat Study For A Madonna Studies For "The Holy Family" Studies For "The Last Supper" Courtyard Of A Cannon-Foundry Study Of The Head Of An Apostle Study For Background Of "The Adoration Of The Magi" Study Of Landscape Study Of A Tree Two Heads Caricatures St. John The Baptist The Head Of Christ Caricatures Head Of An Angel Study Of A Man's Head Studies Of Hands Dragon Fighting With A Lion Man Kneeling Portrait Study Studies Of Animals Portrait Of Leonardo, By Himself Six Heads Of Men And A Bust Of A Woman Study Of A Head The St. Anne Cartoon Studies Of Horses Heads Of A Woman And A Child Study Of Drapery For A Kneeling Figure Knight In Armour Study Of A Youthful Head Study For "Leda" Head Of An Old Man Study Of A Head Study Of The Head Of St. Philip For "The Last Supper" Study Of Drapery Girl's Head Studies Of A Satyr With A Lion ============= KEYWORDS: Leonardo, da Vinci, pen and ink, drawings, illustrations, study, studies, portrait, Portrait Of Isabella D’este, Old Man, Draperies, Kneeling Figures, Bacchus, Head, Battle, Horsemen, Monsters, Woman, Seated, Ground, Child Kneeling, Youth, Horseback, Equestrian Statue, Francesco Sforza, Virgin, St. Anne, Infant, Children, Combat, Madonna, Holy, Family, The Last Supper, Courtyard, Cannon-Foundry, Apostle, Background, Adoration, Magi, Landscape, Tree, Caricatures, St. John The Baptist, Christ, Angel, Hands, Dragon, Fighting, Lion, Portrait, Animals, Six Heads, Bust, Woman, Cartoon, Drapery, Figure, Knight, Armour, Leda, St. Philip, Girl, Satyr
A singular fatality has ruled the destiny of nearly all the most famous of Leonardo da Vinci's works. Two of the three most important were never completed, obstacles having arisen during his life-time, which obliged him to leave them unfinished; namely the Sforza Monument and the Wall-painting of the Battle of Anghiari, while the third—the picture of the Last Supper at Milan—has suffered irremediable injury from decay and the repeated restorations to which it was recklessly subjected during the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. Nevertheless, no other picture of the Renaissance has become so wellknown and popular through copies of every description. Vasari says, and rightly, in his Life of Leonardo, "that he laboured much more by his word than in fact or by deed", and the biographer evidently had in his mind the numerous works in Manuscript which have been preserved to this day. To us, now, it seems almost inexplicable that these valuable and interesting original texts should have remained so long unpublished, and indeed forgotten. It is certain that during the XVIth and XVIIth centuries their exceptional value was highly appreciated. This is proved not merely by the prices which they commanded, but also by the exceptional interest which has been attached to the change of ownership of merely a few pages of Manuscript. That, notwithstanding this eagerness to possess the Manuscripts, their contents remained a mystery, can only be accounted for by the many and great difficulties attending the task of deciphering them. The handwriting is so peculiar that it requires considerable practice to read even a few detached phrases, much more to solve with any certainty the numerous difficulties of alternative readings, and to master the sense as a connected whole. Vasari observes with reference to Leonardos writing: "he wrote backwards, in rude characters, and with the left hand, so that any one who is not practised in reading them, cannot understand them". The aid of a mirror in reading reversed handwriting appears to me available only for a first experimental reading. Speaking from my own experience, the persistent use of it is too fatiguing and inconvenient to be practically advisable, considering the enormous mass of Manuscripts to be deciphered. And as, after all, Leonardo's handwriting runs backwards just as all Oriental character runs backwards—that is to say from right to left—the difficulty of reading direct from the writing is not insuperable. This obvious peculiarity in the writing is not, however, by any means the only obstacle in the way of mastering the text. Leonardo made use of an orthography peculiar to himself; he had a fashion of amalgamating several short words into one long one, or, again, he would quite arbitrarily divide a long word into two separate halves; added to this there is no punctuation whatever to regulate the division and construction of the sentences, nor are there any accents—and the reader may imagine that such difficulties were almost sufficient to make the task seem a desperate one to a beginner. It is therefore not surprising that the good intentions of some of Leonardo s most reverent admirers should have failed.
A new title in the successful Lives of the Artists series, which offers illuminating, and often intimate, accounts of iconic artists as viewed by their contemporaries. Coinciding with the five hundredth anniversary of the death of Leonardo (1452–1519), Lives of Leonardo da Vinci brings together important early biographies of the polymath by Giorgio Vasari, Paolo Giovio, and anonymous authors. This illustrated volume also features recollections by the humanist scholar Sabba di Castiglione; Matteo Bandello’s eyewitness account of the artist creating one of his most famous works, The Last Supper; and letters written by a variety of contemporary authors, including Leonardo himself.
A masterly account of the genius of Leonardo da Vinci and his vision of the world, generously illustrated throughout, presenting a fully integrated picture of Leonardo's art, science, and thought.
It is a miracle that any one man should have observed, read, and written down so much in a single lifetime."--Kenneth Clark Painter, sculptor, musician, scientist, architect, engineer, inventor . . . perhaps no other figure so fully embodies the Western Ideal of "Renaissance man" as Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo was not content, however, to master an artistic technique or record the mechanics of a device; he was driven by an insatiable curiosity to understand why. His writings, interests, and musings are uniformly characterized by an incisive, probing, questioning mind. It was with this piercing intellectual scrutiny and detailed scientific thoroughness that Leonardo undertook the study of the human body. This exceptional volume reproduces more than 1,200 of Leonardo's anatomical drawings on 215 clearly printed black-and-white plates. The drawings have been arranged in chronological sequence to display Leonardo's development and growth as an anatomist. Leonardo's text, which accompanies the drawings--sometimes explanatory, sometimes autobiographical and anecdotal--has been translated into English by the distinguished medical professors Drs. O'Malley and Saunders. In their fascinating biographical introduction, the authors evaluate Leonardo's position in the historical development of anatomy and anatomical illustration. Each plate is accompanied by explanatory notes and an evaluation of the individual plate and an indication of its relationship to the work as a whole. While notable for their extraordinary beauty and precision, Leonardo's anatomical drawings were also far in advance of all contemporary work and scientifically the equal of anything that appeared well into the seventeenth century. Unlike most of his predecessors and contemporaries, Leonardo took nothing on trust and had faith only in his own observations and experiments. In anatomy, as in his other investigations, Leonardo's great distinction is the truly scientific nature of his methods. Herein then are over 1,200 of Leonardo's anatomical illustrations organized into eight major areas of study: Osteological System, Myological System, Comparative Anatomy, Nervous System, Respiratory System, Alimentary System, Genito-Urinary System, and Embryology. Artists, illustrators, physicians, students, teachers, scientists, and appreciators of Leonardo's extraordinary genius will find in these 1,200 drawings the perfect union of art and science. Carefully detailed and accurate in their data, beautiful and vibrant in their technique, they remain today--nearly five centuries later--the finest anatomical drawings ever made. Dover (1983) unabridged and unaltered republication of "Leonardo da Vinci on the Human Body: The Anatomical, Physiological, and Embryological Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, " originally published by Henry Schuman, New York, 1952.
This new Great collection of his art and notes from Cheapest Books. Put together all notes and drawings of Da Vinci as found, not need reordered. A singular fatality has ruled the destiny of nearly all the MOST FAMOUS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI'S WORKS. Two of the three most important were never completed, obstacles having arisen during his life-time, which obliged him to leave them unfinished; namely the Sforza Monument and the Wall-painting of the Battle of Anghiari, while the third—the picture of the Last Supper at Milan—has suffered irremediable injury from decay and the repeated restorations to which it was recklessly subjected during the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. Nevertheless, no other picture of the Renaissance has become so wellknown and popular through copies of every description. Vasari says, and rightly, in his Life of Leonardo, "that he laboured much more by his word than in fact or by deed", and the biographer evidently had in his mind the numerous works in Manuscript which have been preserved to this day. To us, now, it seems almost inexplicable that these valuable and interesting original texts should have remained so long unpublished, and indeed forgotten. It is certain that during the XVIth and XVIIth centuries their exceptional value was highly appreciated. This is proved not merely by the prices which they commanded, but also by the exceptional interest which has been attached to the change of ownership of merely a few pages of Manuscript. Leonardos literary labours in various departments both of Art and of Science were those essentially of an enquirer, hence the analytical method is that which he employs in arguing out his investigations and dissertations. The vast structure of his scientific theories is consequently built up of numerous separate researches, and it is much to be lamented that he should never have collated and arranged them. His love for detailed research—as it seems to me—was the reason that in almost all the Manuscripts, the different paragraphs appear to us to be in utter confusion; on one and the same page, observations on the most dissimilar subjects follow each other without any connection. A page, for instance, will begin with some principles of astronomy, or the motion of the earth; then come the laws of sound, and finally some precepts as to colour. Another page will begin with his investigations on the structure of the intestines, and end with philosophical remarks as to the relations of poetry to painting; and so forth. Leonardo himself lamented this confusion, and for that reason I do not think that the publication of the texts in the order in which they occur in the originals would at all fulfil his intentions. No reader could find his way through such a labyrinth; Leonardo himself could not have done it. Added to this, more than half of the five thousand manuscript pages which now remain to us, are written on loose leaves, and at present arranged in a manner which has no justification beyond the fancy of the collector who first brought them together to make volumes of more or less extent. Nay, even in the volumes, the pages of which were numbered by Leonardo himself, their order, so far as the connection of the texts was concerned, was obviously a matter of indifference to him. The only point he seems to have kept in view, when first writing down his notes, was that each observation should be complete to the end on the page on which it was begun.
Famous in his time as a painter, prankster, and philosopher, Leonardo da Vinci was also a musician, sculptor, and engineer for dukes, popes, and kings. What remains of his work-from futuristic designs and scientific inquiry to artwork of ethereal beauty-reveals the ambitious, unpredictable brilliance of a visionary, and a timeless dreamer. Robert Byrd celebrates this passionate, playful genius in a glowing picture book replete with the richness and imagination of Leonardo's own notebooks. Twenty lavish spreads, including side drawings, supplemental texts, and quotes from Leonardo's writings, highlight distinct periods and make the master's art, jokes, explorations, and inventions wonderfully vivid and accessible. A striking tribute to an irrepressible mind and to the potential within all who are curious.
As he examines the changing views of Leonardo since the sixteenth century, A. Richard Turner both gives the reader a cultural history in brief of western Europe during this period and provides a context for examining Leonardo's relevance to our own ways of perceiving and interpreting the world.
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