Length1h 40m
About this audiobook
Leonardo's early life was spent in Florence, his maturity in Milan, and the last three years of his life in France. Leonardo's teacher was Verrocchio. First he was a goldsmith, then a painter and sculptor: as a painter, representative of the very scientific school of draughtsmanship; more famous as a sculptor, being the creator of the Colleoni statue at Venice, Leonardo was a man of striking physical attractiveness, great charm of manner and conversation, and mental accomplishment. He was well grounded in the sciences and mathematics of the day, as well as a gifted musician. His skill in draughtsmanship was extraordinary; shown by his numerous drawings as well as by his comparatively few paintings. His skill of hand is at the service of most minute observation and analytical research into the character and structure of form. Leonardo is the first in date of the great men who had the desire to create in a picture a kind of mystic unity brought about by the fusion of matter and spirit. Now that the Primitives had concluded their experiments, ceaselessly pursued during two centuries, by the conquest of the methods of painting, he was able to pronounce the words which served as a password to all later artists worthy of the name: painting is a spiritual thing, cosa mentale. He completed Florentine draughtsmanship in applying to modelling by light and shade, a sharp subtlety which his predecessors had used only to give greater precision to their contours. This marvellous draughtsmanship, this modelling and chiaroscuro he used not solely to paint the exterior appearance of the body but, as no one before him had done, to cast over it a reflection of the mystery of the inner life. In the Mona Lisa and his other masterpieces he even used landscape not merely as a more or less picturesque decoration, but as a sort of echo of that interior life and an element of a perfect harmony. Relying on the still quite novel laws of perspective this doctor of scholastic wisdom, who was at the same time an initiator of modern thought, substituted for the discursive manner of the Primitives the principle of concentration which is the basis of classical art. The picture is no longer presented to us as an almost fortuitous aggregate of details and episodes. It is an organism in which all the elements, lines and colours, shadows and lights, compose a subtle tracery converging on a spiritual, a sensuous centre. It was not with the external significance of objects, but with their inward and spiritual significance, that Leonardo was occupied.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 3.9 (26)
Includes Goodreads
GenreOther
Length1 hr 40 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateNov 14, 2023
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Introduction
2Head of the Virgin in Three-Quarter View Facing Right, 1508-1512
3Biography
4The Virgin and Child with Two Angels, Leonardo da Vinci and the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, probably 1470s
5Baptism of Christ, Leonardo da Vinci and Andrea del Verrocchio, 1470-1476
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6Virgin and Child (Madonna of the Carnation), c.1473
7Study of Draperies for the Arm of an Angel in the Annunciation, c.1472
8Lily, 1480-1485
9The Annunciation, 1472
10Arno Landscape, 1473
11Ginevra de’ Benci, c. 1474/1478
12The Madonna and Child (The Benois Madonna), 1478
13Virgin and Child with Cat, c.1478-1481
14Study of the Madonna and Child with a Cat, c.1478
15Studies of a Dog’s Paw, 1490
16Bust of a Warrior in Profile, c.1475-1480
17Study of Flowers, c.1481-1483
18Perspectival Study for Adoration of the Magi, c.1481
19Adoration of the Magi, 1480
20Saint Jerome Praying in the Wilderness, 1482
21Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, The Lady with the Ermine, 1483-1490
22Portrait of a Musician, c. 1485
23Studies of Churches with Central Nave Plans, 1485-1490
24A Rider on a Rearing Horse Trampling a Fallen Foe (Study for the Sforza Monument), 1485-1490
25Grotesque Profile of a Man, c.1485-1490
26Interior of the Skull, 1489
27The Skull Sectioned, 1489
28Various Studies, before 1490
29A Study of a Woman’s Hands, c.1490
30Study of a Head of a Woman, c.1490
31The Vitruvian Man, 1490
32Portrait of a Lady from the Court of Milan, wrongly called the Beautiful Ferronniere, 1490-1495
33The Virgin of the Rocks (The Virgin with the Infant Saint John adoring the Infant Christ accompanied by an Angel), about 1491-1508
34Half a Male and Half a Female Body, c.1492-1493
35Coupling Study, 1492-1494
36A Rocky Ravine, c.1475
37Bust of an Apostle with Right Hand Raised, c.1495
38The Head of St Phillip, c.1495
39Study for The Last Supper (Christ), c.1495
40The Head of Judas, c.1495 or later
41The Last Supper, 1494-1498
42Saint Anne, the Virgin with the Child and Child John the Baptist, 1499-1500
43Studies for the Christ Child, 1501-1510
44Head of a Dishevelled Young Girl, or La Scapagliata, 1500
45Portrait of Isabella d’Este, 1500
46Map of Tuscany and Emilie-Romagne, 1502-1503
47Map of Western Tuscany, 1502-1505
48A Scheme for a Canal to Bypass the Arno, c.1504
49Map of the Val de Chiana, 1504
50A Cannon Factory, c.1503-1504
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