Leonardo da Vinci was born in
1492 at a Tuscan farmhouse in Anchiano, Italy, near the town of
Vinci where he spent most of his childhood. He was the son of Ser
Piero and a girl called Caterina who worked for him. After
Leonardo was born, the father and mother did not remain together.
Only recently have details of Leonardo's birth mother come to
light. In 2002, Alessandro Vezzosi, Director of the Leonardo da
Vinci Museum in Vinci, Italy, told the press they had found
substantial proof Leonardo’s mother was a slave girl and not a
peasant girl, as previously believed.(1) Vezzosi went on to report
that Leonardo’s father was a craftsman who owned a Middle-Eastern
female slave named Caterina. And, according to their discovery, a
few months after Caterina gave birth to Leonardo, she was married
off to one of the workers.
Leonardo lived in Anchiana and
in Vinci until he was eight years old. Afterwards, he moved to
Florence with his father. When Leonardo was 14, he became an
apprentice under the famed sculptor and painter Andrea del
Verrocchio in Florence. In that period, Verrocchio was the leading
Florentine artist. By the time Leonardo was between 21 and 23
years old, he had become a very skilled painter. Verrocchio
permitted Leonardo to help with an important painting, The Baptism
of Christ (Uffizi Gallery, Florence). Leonardo painted the
background and the kneeling angel. It is said that when Verrocchio
saw that Leonardo could paint better than anyone he had ever seen,
including himself, he gave up painting for good. Verrocchio
decided he would concentrate on sculpture.
Leonardo da Vinci was said to
have a great love for animals, and his journals further
illustrates this. He was a vegetarian, at least in the latter part
of his life (we don't have definite proof that he was a strict
vegetarian in his early life). He wrote, "The time will come when
men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now
look on the murder of men." He also remarked, "The smallest feline
is a masterpiece."
In the 1480s, Leonardo painted
Lady With The Ermine. The Lady in the painting is Cecilia
Gallerani, the 17-year-old mistress of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of
Milan. She carries an ermine for three reasons. First, for the
Duke of Milan, having been appointed to the Order of the Ermine by
Ferdinand I of Naples, the ermine was the symbol of heraldry on
his coat of arms. Second, the ermine was considered to be a symbol
of virtue and purity. And finally, it was a play on Cecilia
Gallerani's name since the Greek name for ermine is "galee".
In Leonardo's notebooks, he
wrote that the ermine eats every other day. Most likely the
ermine, an animal related to the sable and weasel, stayed in the
studio while the painting was being completed. In the Renaissance
period, soft-hair paint brushes were made of ermine tail tips.
Brushes were also made from squirrel fur and fastened into goose
or hen feathers – another reason the ermine might have been at
home in the studio.
Leonardo da Vinci included cats
in many of his sketches. On one sheet of animal sketches in his
notebook, the artist portrayed more than twenty cats, and one
dragon. He drew cats in different poses, alone, with other cats,
and being cuddled and held. His sketches are lively and reveal the
solemn affection he had for felines.
Throughout the mid to late
1470s, Leonardo worked on a series of different studies relating
to the theme of the Madonna and the Christ Child, holding a cat.
It was originally thought that no paintings existed beyond his
initial studies for these paintings. Recently; however, Madonna
with the Cat, which is in the collection of industrialist Carlo
Noya in Savona, Italy, was discovered to be a painting by none
other than Leonardo.(2) The painting is based on a legend about a
cat being born at the same moment as the baby Jesus.
Other sketches for paintings
that feature animals and are based on a legend or myth is that of
Leda and the Swan. Although no actual paintings exist, there are
countless drawings. The story is that Leda was seduced by the God
Zeus in the form of a swan and bore two eggs, which resulted in
the creation of Helen of Troy with Clytemnestra, and Castor with
Pollux.
Although there are countless
studies and sketches made by Leonardo, only 13 or 14 actual
paintings exist today. One of these is Madonna and Child with St.
Anne, painted from 1508 to 1510. The figures depicted all relate
to one another, and the baby Jesus is shown tightly holding a
little lamb. Da Vinci painted the lamb with sensitivity and
detail. The lamb is symbolic of Jesus Christ's sacrificial death
for mankind. Leonardo’s animal subjects are based on reality and
are filled with vitality.
Sources:
1.http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,810926,00.html
2.http://www.lairweb.org.nz/leonardo/cat.html
Submitted 9/12/2006
Leonardo is known to have kept
horses, along with dogs, cats and other animals. Although numerous
animal studies are found throughout Leonardo's drawings, his most
frequent animal sketches are of horses. His renderings are
extremely detailed and life-like. He infused his renditions of
animals with nobility – a characteristic that stemmed from his
deep love and respect for the animals he sketched and painted.
In the mid 1480s, Leonardo
moved from Florence to Milan. At that time, Milan was one of the
most powerful city-states in Northern Italy. And, it's Duke,
Ludovico Sforza, commissioned Leonardo to make a horse like no
other to honor the Duke’s father, Francesco Sforzo. It was to be a
massive, bronze-cast statue – the largest statue ever built,
standing 24 feet high.
Leonardo made a great number of
preparatory drawings for his Sforza Horse. His notebooks are
filled with proportional studies of horses. There are detailed
diagrams of the anatomy of horses, along with notes on how to cast
it, and it would weigh 80 tons once complete! Leonardo made the
clay model to scale, but the bronze horse was not to be. In 1499,
the French army threatened an attack. The metal intended for the
Sforza Horse would be needed to make canons. Leonardo left Milan
before the French Army marched on the city. Seeing the massive
clay horse, the French soldiers could not resist using it for
target practice.Thereafter it was reduced to rubble. Leonardo
became despondent and at the same time, vowed to one day see his
horse completely built.
Much has been written
throughout history about the "Horse that Never Was". Five hundred
years after the destruction of the clay model, based on the notes
and sketches of Leonardo, the 24-foot bronze horse was cast. In
fact, two full-scale statues were completed. One stands in
Michigan, while the other was given as a gift to the City of
Milan. United Airline Pilot Charles Dent made it happen. Upon
seeing the original sketches that had been rediscovered in Spain,
he started the process of raising the necessary funds to build the
full-scale, bronze horse. His plan was to give it as a gift to the
Italians from the Americans. Being something of a sculptor
himself, he built a clay model of the horse to Leonardo's
specifications. And, although Charles Dent died in 1994, his dream
lived on and over four-million dollars was raised. On September
10th, 1999, exactly 500 years after the French destroyed
Leonardo's clay model, the bronze statue was unveiled in Milan. On
October 7th, 1999, a second casting of the horse was unveiled in
Grand Rapids, Michigan. This second horse is known as the American
Horse.
Along with his sudies of
mammals, Leonardo made hundreds of bird sketches. In the medieval
publication Lives of Artists, Giorgio Vasari tells how Leonardo
would go to the markets and buy caged birds, and then open their
cages, giving them back their freedom.(1) Leonardo studied the
motion of their wings in flight as well as their anatomy and
physiology. He wrote down and illustrated his own theories on the
flight of birds and was inspired to make several sketches of
mechanical flying machines. He wrote a treatise called Codex on
The Flight of Birds in which he made diagrams of a helical wing,
beating wings, a parachute, and bat wings. Later he realized the
problems with human-powered propulsion and began making notes and
diagrams of gliders. He also designed a machine based on a helical
screw that was 32 or 33 feet in diameter.(2) It was supposed to
lift off and fly as the blade rotated, resembling a modern-day
helicopter.
Leonardo’s passionate interest
in studying animals was unique for his time. He studied and
observed animals, and sketched and painted them with grace and
realism. Other Renaissance artists like Michelangelo (1475-1564)
and Raphael (1483-1520), who focused more on the humanity and
divinity in art, did not include animals in their works to the
extent as Leonardo did.(3) Without neglecting the Divine in
Humanity, Leonardo above all other Renaissance artists, elevated
all of nature and made it part of the Divine.
Sources:
1 http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/vasari/vasari14.htm
2.http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/leonardo/studio/
3.Kane, Douglas D. "Science in the Art of the Italian Renaissance
II: Leonardo da Vinci's Representation of Animals in His Works"
Ohio State University, 2002
Submitted 9/12/2006
Copyright © 2006 Melanie Light
