101 Things You Didn't Know About Da Vinci (9 page)

One-point perspective (which, as the name suggests, contains one vanishing point) was useful for scenes that looked down a narrow corridor or alley. Leonardo's
The Last Supper
is an excellent example of an interior scene that used this type of linear perspective. Two-point perspective was incorporated more often for landscapes and other scenes that contained wide angles of view. Early Renaissance architects such as Brunelleschi and Alberti worked with linear-perspective techniques, and Leonardo was a major proponent of this new drawing method.

In learning how to construct precise, accurate perspective drawings, Leonardo may have worked with a device called a perspectograph. The idea behind it was similar to a mechanic's workbench, only it was for drawing. This system involved a table with a stand that had a cutout, through which the artist could trace perspective lines of objects beyond the stand. While Leonardo didn't invent the idea of drawing in perspective, he used it to such an extent that other artists soon came to admire, and then imitate, his style.

Leonardo was actually increasing his workload by painting more realistically (and more three-dimensionally) than his predecessors. With this new way of drawing, he had to develop new techniques to make the entire painting appear more convincing. No longer would simple, flat colors suffice! Figures seen in the round had to be properly distinguished, both as their own forms and as objects distinct from the scene's background. Thus, historians largely credit Leonardo with developing another critical artistic innovation known as
chiaroscuro
, which, translated from Italian, means “clear/light and dark.” Leonardo used light and dark colors to portray both shade and shadow more convincingly, as they were actually experienced in real life. This use of the
chiaroscuro
technique represented the first time a Renaissance painter had contrasted lights and darks to help create a truly three-dimensional image.
Chiaroscuro
is evident in many of Leonardo's paintings, including the early
Benois Madonna
of 1478. Leonardo's
chiaroscuro
technique has become so integral to artistic training that some historians have even called it one of Leonardo's most important artistic contributions.

In addition to representing lights and shadows accurately, realistic paintings need to convey subtle transitions from one tone to another.
Sfumato
, an Italian word meaning “vanished,” is used to describe a technique Leonardo developed to do exactly that: graduate color values between parts of an object to make it accurately reflect the object's full roundness. Early Flemish painters had experimented with these methods, but none had used the technique to the same extent or with as much success as Leonardo.

The
Mona Lisa
is an excellent example of
sfumato
. While the woman's face is fully enveloped by shade and shadow, it is also completely smooth. Leonardo used brushes, as well as his fingers, to blend the tones and create perfect transitions to represent light as it swept around the woman's head. Then, the light in the scene simply subsides into darkness. The transitions between light and dark here are imperceptible; the superb blending allows viewers to focus on the painted subject, rather than the technique of painting.

31
The scene behind the scene

In the classical period of ancient Greece and Rome, art focused on celebrating the gods. The Renaissance brought out a new tradition of naturalistic art, one that placed religious scenes or even portraits in natural surroundings. Subtly woven into many of these works was the idea that it was possible to represent the presence of a supreme being, while simultaneously paying attention to the individual. Many of Leonardo's paintings were religious in nature, and the Renaissance's focus on humanism gave Leonardo the opportunity to incorporate his fondness for the natural world into the preexisting influence of Christianity.

Leonardo took this developing Renaissance methodology to a new level. Many of his works include fantastic landscapes as backgrounds, and these backgrounds sometimes involve complex architectural creations (think Escher) or landscapes with natural elements such as rolling hills, valleys, streams, and mountains. Yet even these more natural elements take on an air of the ethereal thanks to Leonardo's innovative techniques.

So how did Leonardo achieve these effects? His conceptual method involved rendering scenes as if they appeared through a fine veil of mist. An early precursor of this technique, called
sfumato
(see number 30), is actually visible in his earliest remaining landscape drawing, created in 1473 when Leonardo was only twenty-one. Details of this landscape seem to recede into the distance thanks to atmospheric perspective.

Perhaps the most famous of Leonardo's background landscapes is in the
Mona Lisa
. Rather than placing her indoors, as was typical for most portraits, Leonardo positioned Lisa, the woman with the enigmatic smile, in front of a dreamlike landscape full of craggy mountains and sinuous streams. The background's movement captures Leonardo's view of the natural world, one that is ever-changing and constantly in motion. The only man-made element in this background is a small bridge crossing one of the rivers. If you were to inspect the background closely, you'd also see that the two sides do not match up—the horizon on the right side of the figure is significantly higher than that on the left side. Most likely, this was a deliberate trick on Leonardo's part to lend an increased sense of activity and realism to the central figure by making her place in the painting appear to change depending on whether you look at her from the left side or from the right.

A late painting,
St. John in the Wilderness
(attributed to Leonardo, although not confirmed as his), goes one better. It combines a realistic natural setting (trees, roots, cliffs, and animals) with one of Leonardo's traditional misty backgrounds. Toward the top left of the painting, the landscape recedes into mists and lakes—very surreal. An earlier painting,
The Virgin of the Rocks
, creates a fantastic setting for a typical religious theme, placing the subjects in a cave, or grotto. The scene is complete with a reflective pool of water, gorgeous plants, and a background of rocks that erupt from the floor and hang dangerously from the ceiling. Rather than receding into darkness, the rocks extend into a bright misty region typical of Leonardo's other backgrounds.

32
Finish that painting! Leonardo and the fine art of completion

While no one would ever question Leonardo's overall genius, doesn't it seem strange that we celebrate him so much as an artist, while so few of his paintings remain today? As mentioned previously, one reason for this conspicuous lack was Leonardo's tendency to start many projects, but actually finish very few. Even in his earliest days, he flitted from subject to subject, learning and experimenting with writing, drawing, painting, sculpting, music, science, engineering, and math. So why didn't he just focus on one art form? It's possible that as stunning as his works were, they did not match the perfection of the images in his head, and he gave up rather than fail in the expression of his imagined perfection. Another possibility is that, especially later in life, Leonardo saw himself more as an inventor and scientist than as an artist, and thus devoted more time to such works. The inevitable consequence was that he ended up neglecting his art.

Leonardo was an innovator, and as such, he wanted to rush out and test newly discovered techniques—which, of course, went against the tried-and-true methods of his time. Granted, his innovative approach sometimes had disastrous results. Take, for instance, his fresco
The Last Supper
. Leonardo painted this masterpiece using a new technique he'd developed, but the paint began to peel from the wall almost immediately. Another ambitious later work,
The Battle of Anghiari
, was supposed to have presented an entire battle scene on a wall opposite a new work by Michelangelo. When Leonardo actually painted the work, again using a new experimental technique, the paint adhered to the walls without problem this time. Unfortunately, when Leonardo applied heat to dry and fix the paint, his luck ran out. Some of the paint ran off the walls and the rest scaled off in pieces. The project was almost a complete failure, and other artists actually wound up painting over what remained of Leonardo's original work.

Beyond his penchant for experimentation (which sometimes backfired), perhaps Leonardo simply got bored. Maybe he worked first and most intensely on the aspects of a painting that he found most interesting: the design and rendering of faces, hands, hair, and background landscapes. Once he was finished with those portions, he may have simply left other parts of his paintings incomplete or had his students fill in certain elements, which seems to be the case with his
Portrait of a Musician
. Leonardo rendered the face and hands exquisitely, but he barely sketched the drapery of the young man's tunic into place.

Not finishing what he started got Leonardo into trouble on more than one occasion. In some cases, patrons never paid him for his unfinished work; in other cases, he had to return the initial advance money he received when he didn't complete a painting on time. For example, despite having a contract, Leonardo never completed
Adoration of the Magi
, meant for the monks at Scopeto in 1481. Apparently, Leonardo only finished a sketch and never even started the main painting. A lawsuit over another work,
The Virgin of the Rocks
, dragged on for about ten years. As a result, Leonardo eventually completed two versions of the painting to fulfill the contract.

The equestrian
Statue of Francesco Sforza
is yet another work that, although ambitious in creative scope, perhaps overreached the realm of feasibility (see number 29). If Leonardo had been willing to settle for a smaller sculpture—life-sized for instance—the statue might have been built and probably would have survived the battles in Renaissance Italy. However, settling doesn't seem to have been in Leonardo's nature. He designed this sculpture to stand more than twenty-five feet tall and, as a result, he ran into problems. For starters, there was no foundry big enough to create such a large sculpture. Then, as he was gathering bronze to cast the sculpture, Milan became embroiled in war and Leonardo had to surrender his precious supplies for military usage. Leonardo had only a clay model of the horse statue to show for all of his efforts, and that was eventually destroyed when the French used it for target practice.

Although Leonardo's failure to complete so many of his works might lead you to believe otherwise, at times he was quite a perfectionist, refusing to let go of certain works to which he felt particularly attached. The
Mona Lisa
is a perfect example of this; Leonardo moved his favorite painting around with him from studio to studio, working and reworking it for many years, until near the end of his life. In fact, he never really judged this painting finished.

33
Building the scene-scape

The advent of humanism brought plenty of changes to Renaissance artists and patrons. Artists like Leonardo had to develop new techniques and skills to paint increasingly convincing scenes—people expected more, and artists had to live up to those expectations. Fortunately, Leonardo excelled at incorporating nature and landscapes into his paintings. He spent much time studying anatomy, biology, and geology, and his observations gave him a keen sense of proportion and movement.

Along with this interest in humanism, architectural landscapes also became increasingly popular during the Renaissance. As this idea was a relatively new addition to Leonardo's artistic bag of tricks, some of his early examples seem awkward or forced. The
Dreyfuss Madonna
of 1469 demonstrates this problem quite well. The Madonna is seated in front of a window, which is too close to the viewer to be properly discernable. Its rendering is too dark in contrast to the brightness of the Madonna in the foreground, and it appears out of place. The landscape seen through the window seems equally disjointed. Despite questions about its execution, this painting is important because it represents one of Leonardo's early attempts to create coherence amongst natural, built, and human forms.

From 1472 to 1475, Leonardo contributed to at least one version of an Annunciation scene. This painting features many architectural elements, including a marble sarcophagus representing a Medici family tomb. The composition appears awkward, and not all of the figures are drawn in the same perspective (the Virgin Mary is posed in a three-quarter view, whereas an angel is depicted almost sideways). Nevertheless, this painting has much more pronounced architectural definition than Leonardo's previous works. There is a partially revealed doorway, and the wall behind it is defined with enormous quoins. This sort of precise architectural detailing was without classical precedent, and even artist-architects such as Brunelleschi and Alberti did not present built elements to such an extent. The landscape in the background appears nearly flat, however, indicating that Leonardo still had some refining to do when it came to working out the coordination of nature and architecture fully.

Madonna of the Carnation
is another interior scene that deals with the background in a more three-dimensional way. This painting dates to 1478, and you can easily see Leonardo's increasing expertise with perspective. The arched colonnade clearly shows one-point perspective, though the angle of view is somewhat inconsistent with the perspective of the foreground figures.

The Last Supper
, completed in 1498, combines the best of both worlds: humanlike figures with real architectural interiors. Leonardo used single-point perspective to create a space that was geometrically precise. Most of the painting is also symmetrical, showing off the latent influence of classical notions of balance and proportion. The upper part of the image (before restoration) actually shows imperfect symmetry and slightly off-center perspective. Leonardo found a way to sneak in his own special touch through these small sorts of details.