Research paper - Niamul Karim

Name: Niamul Karim                                                                             Date: 05/10/2015.

English 110

                  The Importance of Leonardo Da Vinci and his works on modern science and arts

The art and science are the two most important key to the prosperity of a generation. These two are the result and the history of the knowledge that the people of a generation practiced. Art and science are practiced by the two types of people. Majority of them are the apprentice group and the small number of people by whose hands all the apprentice get taught are the scholars and the teachers. Hundreds of years are passing by but among the teachers there are some genius people who are born for the knowledge to spread them to the generation to the generation of the future. Fourteenth century has witnessed the born of a genius of multiple talent in the field of knowledge when the science has just got it’s name. Whose flawless  art and painting with the combination of science and philosophy has made it easy to understand them for the generation of his time and the generation to come in future. The man who could make the most accurate calculation of the need of the people for all times and works on it in his entire life was Leonardo di ser Piero Da Vinci. He was entitled as polymath, painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer. He was born in 15 April 1452 in Vinci, Republic or Florence, the present name is Italy.  He was the son of the wealthy Messer Piero, also called ser piero, Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a Florentine legal notary, and Caterina, a peasant and they never get married.

Leonardo Da Vinci has attracted the curiosity until today to all the historian and educated mass because of his mysterious personality and because of the genius mind he got. He is the type person about whom everything we are eager to know. Because that will give us an understanding on the fact that how a man be like who can think far more advance than the other people of his time.  Leonardo had no formal education beyond reading, writing and math but he has got the talent of painting with which he was born. Since childhood his talents with curiosity were shown. Before going to his talent we  have found  two childhood incidents that are recorded of Da Vinci. First one was considered as an omen that was when a kite dropped from the sky and hovered over his cradle, its tail feathers brushing his face. The second incidents exposed his curiosity. Once he was exploring a mountain and the found there a cave which were so terrified that he thought some great monster might lurk there and driven by curiosity he went inside to find out what was there. Leonardo once painted a monster spitting fire which was so terrifying that Ser Piero his father sold it to a Florentine art dealer, who sold it to the Duke of Milan.

In 1466 at the age of fourteen Leonardo Da Vinci has become the apprentice of the artist Andrea di Cione, known as Verrocchio, whose workshop was "one of the finest in Florence at the age of fourteen. During that period he painted one of his famous painting “ the Baptist of the Christ “ which was far more better than his master that Verrocchio has given up painting forever.

Leonardo Da Vinci has qualified as a master in the Guild of St Luke, the guild of artists and doctors of medicine at the age of thirteen but even after when he got his own workshop he remained collaborated with his teacher Verrocchio.

Da Vinci’s works on new inventions and science was so inspiring and his perfection in drawing and painting was extremely flawless which expresses the minor detail of everything so clearly that artists of every generation including 21^st century shall learn from his work. His work was fully with dedication and patience.

At the time of Leonardo creating the accurate map was extremely rare. We can call him the inventor of the modern map. His contribution to drawing the map was remarkable. In the year 1502 when he entered the service of Cesare Borgia in Cesena, the son of Pope Alexander VI, he drew a town map of Imola in order to win Borgia’s patronage. Maps were extremely rare at the time and it would have seemed like a new concept. Upon seeing it, Cesare hired Leonardo as his chief military engineer and architect. Later in the year, Leonardo produced another map for his patron, one of Chiana Valley, Tuscany, so as to give his patron a better overlay of the land and greater strategic position. He created this map in conjunction with his other project of constructing a dam from the sea to Florence, in order to allow a supply of water to sustain the canal during all seasons.

Now, first come to the point for the master piece for which Leonardo Da Vinci is known to all including the general people who does not know much about his great talent. That masterpiece priceless painting is “ Monalisa “. For this single work of oil painting where his greatness is shown he is enough to call him the “ Teacher of all the painters of the world “. “ Monalisa “  was drawn to become a treasure and it is until today is a piece of research and a lesson to all the painters. The beauty of this picture is it’s perfection and the great mystery of this picture is that it is impossible to understand the actual feelings and expression that is hidden behind the face. Leonardo has gone forever with the secrets by keeping it himself. Monalisa is a proof that how much a human can go to the perfection of painting and the twenty first century painter has got a guideline and encouragement through this painting. The artist biographer Giorgio Vasari in 1550 first suggested that this is the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo (née Gherardini), the wife of the Florentine merchant Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo. Sigmund Freud the great psychologist thinks that Mona Lisa’s mysterious smile emerged from a—perhaps unconscious—memory of Caterina’s smile, who was Leonardo’s mother. Leonardo’s preliminary drawings encouraged other artists to make more and freer studies for their paintings. In 1506, a young painter named Raphael Sanzio who was a famous painter influenced by the Leonardo’s work, has adopted the format of Monalisa for all of his portrait work, one of them is “Portrait of Maddalena Doni “. So, by this we can understand that the single painting Monalisa has taught Raphael for his life time of career in making portraits. Not only Raphael, the painter of fifteenth, but also the painters of 21^st century are learning and taking advantages from the quality work of  the artwork “ Monalisa “ which has surpassed the time in fourteenth century by the hands of Leonardo Da Vinci. Another fascinating work of Leonardo Da Vinci was “ The Last Supper “ and “ The crucifixion of Jesus Christ “. This two painting was done by Da Vinci for the renovation of a church. ‘’ The Last supper “ was painted on the end wall of the dining hall of at the monastery of the Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. On the opposite wall of it was the painting “ the crucifixion of Jesus Christ “ being done. The Last supper is more significant art work and researched a lot because it contains a lots of mystery. The every hand expression of the hands details of the apostle of Jesus Christ was minor to minor detail of their conversation. There is a feminine figure in the picture in Da Vinci Code Novel which was described as the Mary Magdalene which arise a lots of controversy and discussions on the matter.  From here too the artists of all ages shall need to learn about the beauty, mysteries and the perfection of a painting.

Leonardo’s genius brain is made to become a founder principal of knowledge in Renaissance age. His observations and inventions in science were recorded in 13,000 pages of notes and drawings. He has made a strong base in the research fields of science and architecture as well. The mind blowing ideas that he did show through his painting, which was like turning on the light in the midst of darkness at the age of ignorance in scientific research, his spectacular sketch of airplane with scientific notes and logical evidence. This sketch of airplane was made some 400 before the Wright Brothers first succeed. For this he is the perfect man for the title the Renaissance man. For much of his life, Leonardo was fascinated by the phenomenon of flight, producing many studies of the flight of birds, including his Codex on the Flight of Birds, as well as plan for several flying machines, including a flapping ornithopter and a machine with a helical rotor. Leonardo's designs for machines such as a parachute, and giant crossbow were interpreted, constructed and tested. Some of those designs proved a success, whilst others fared less well when practically tested. It is undoubtedly the most important path finding contribution to the fundamental of aeronautical engineering. The concept of giant crossbow though successfully being used as a weapon in medium size.

One of da Vinci's last commissioned works was a mechanical lion that could walk and open its chest to reveal a bouquet of lilies which is more fascinating because this fourteenth centurian man has thought about robot at the time when there was the invention of electricity had not done yet.  One of his another interesting robotic idea was the mechanical knight. The date of the design and possible construction of this robot was 1495. Beginning in the 1950s, investigators at the University of California began to ponder the significance of some of da Vinci's markings on what appeared to be technical drawings. It is now known that da Vinci's robot would have had the outer appearance of a Germanic knight. In the 2007, a scientist named Mario Taddei, a L3's technical director and chief researcher Known as the Leonardo da Vinci scholar, has given the practical appearance to this mechanical knight in his laboratory. He made this robot which was designed just for defensive purpose, not for war or theater and his movement are related to the arms that move right and left with a rope. The Model is shown in exhibition around the world and the work of research is published in the "Leonardo da Vinci's robots" book.

With his flawless artistic talent Leonardo Da Vinci during his lifetime has worked on the design and pattern of a lots of machine among them most of are now being used in this modern world. For example, In 1502, Leonardo produced a drawing of a single span 720-foot (220 m) bridge as part of a civil engineering project for Ottoman Sultan Beyazid II of Constantinople. The bridge was intended to span an inlet at the mouth of the Bosporus known as the Golden Horn. Beyazid did not pursue the project because he believed that such a construction was impossible. Leonardo's vision was resurrected in 2001 when a smaller bridge based on his design was constructed in Norway. A remarkable scientific pattern can be seen in the picture of the “ Lady with Ermine “. In this picture Leonardo Da vinci has drawn the face of a lady where light has fallen on the face and that part seems bright and the other half of the face was shadowed. This is simply brilliant because in this picture he showed with oil painting the presence of light on the lady and the ermine which describe the basic principal of light and shadows that if an obstacle comes in front of light then shadow develops and the light curves over the obstacle.

Now, let’s give a glimpse on the study of the Leonardo Da Vinci on anatomy. When he was the apprentice of Andrea del Verrocchio, he got the formal education on anatomy because Verrocchio insisted that all of his pupils will learn anatomy. As an artist, Leonardo became master of topographic anatomy and drawn many studies of muscles, tendons and other visible anatomical features. The Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence and the hospitals of Milan and Rome had given him the permission to dissect human corpses. Da Vinci continued his works on anatomy with Doctor Marcantonio della Tore, who was the renaissance professor of Anatomy at the University of Padua. Leonardo made over 240 detailed drawings and wrote about 13000 words towards a treatise on anatomy. On this contribution to anatomy of Da Vinci, Martin Clayton, head of prints and drawings in the Royal Collection, and the curator of the Edinburgh exhibition said, “One mustn’t get carried away claiming that Leonardo was a completely unique figure. There were lots of investigative anatomists around at the time, and there were lots of artists who were interested in anatomy. But Leonardo pushed these two things further than anybody else. He was the supreme example of an anatomist who could also draw, or of an artist who was also a very skilled dissector. It was the union of these two skills in a single figure that made Leonardo unique. “

One of his most great anatomical art is the fetus in the utero, it is one of his first anatomical study.  This was one of the perfect earliest art of the womb where everything described completely about the uterus and its structures. At that time where there was no X-ray machines and any technology to see what is inside the human body, Leonardo Da Vinci had made his anatomical drawings successfully. His drawing about skull and limbs of human body is praiseworthy. It includes many studies of the human skeleton and its parts, and studies muscles and sinews. He studied the mechanical functions of the skeleton and the muscular forces that are applied to it in a manner that prefigured the modern science of biomechanics. He also drew the vascular system of heart, sex organs and also he drew the dissects of the skull. The drawings and notation of Leonardo Da Vinci on anatomy are far ahead of their time, and if published, would undoubtedly have made a major contribution to medical science, said by Alastair Sooke,  an art critic at The Daily Telegraph.

 Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich, Director, Central Institute for the History of Art, Munich, 1947–70. Author of Leonardo da Vinci; Leonardo architetto, has said in his book that Leonardo envisaged the great picture chart of the human body he had produced through his anatomical drawings and Vitruvian Man as a cosmografia del minor mondo (“cosmography of the microcosm”). He believed the workings of the human body to be an analogy, in microcosm, for the workings of the universe. Leonardo wrote: “Man has been called by the ancients a lesser world, and indeed the name is well applied; because, as man is composed of earth, water, air, and fire…this body of the earth is similar.” He compared the human skeleton to rocks (“supports of the earth”) and the expansion of the lungs in breathing to the ebb and flow of the oceans. It shows that Leonardo was undoubtedly one of those greats in the early history of science who had started to think logically about the human body.

It is understood that modern science is the result of the research of ancient people. At those times many genius was born and had been witnessed by the history. Leonardo was one of the time changing legendary artist-scientist. As if he got the key of the main door of perfect science and arts. Above we have just discussed a little about some of his artwork and scientific research. He is an example of a man who could think about something which is not present at his time and then he did imagine and think so practically about the necessities of human being which full fills the requirement of the people of present generation and the generation that is supposed to arrive. He did not have any electricity at his time but he made the pattern of the great scientific inventions. For our generation Leonardo Da Vinci is a man to be followed. In his 67 years of life he just dedicated himself to acquiring knowledge and discovering the unknown through painting and writing. Many young artist and knowledge seeker who thinks what to do in life can have a great guideline and inspiration from the life of Leonardo Da Vinci, who got nothing with him except pencil, oil color and paper and with that he contributed to the modern science where we have a millions of supporting materials with us to practice sciences. Ludwig in his book Leonardo da Vinci; Leonardo architetto again said, “As the 15th century expired, Scholastic doctrines were in decline, and humanistic scholarship was on the rise. Leonardo, however, was part of an intellectual circle that developed a third, specifically modern, form of cognition.” He further extended by saying that Leonardo developed a unique “theory of knowledge” in which art and science form a synthesis.

The super genius man like Leonardo Da Vinci was, is and will always be the matter of new discussions and interest to the scholars of every generations because Da Vinci’s personality which was just covered with the mystery of knowledge and hard work has a lots of doors to open in modern art and science.

“The crux of the matter is his intellectual force—self-contained and inherent in every one of his creations—a force that continues to spark scholarly interest today “ (Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich).

In the conclusion I want to say that when we take the name of Leonardo Da Vinci first thing comes in mind that he was a painter but after observing his paintings and scientific inventions the statement, “ Da Vinci was the inventor of the unknown discovery who gave the science the  beauty of art and paintings. “ is the appropriate sentence to describe him in my opinion.