The Mona Lisa might not be the most famous painting in the world had Leonardo da Vinci not mastered human anatomy. To capture the mysterious smile of the Mona Lisa, Leonardo dissected human bodies, peeling back the layers of the face to uncover every nerve that made the muscles move. He took the advice of Renaissance polymath Leon Battista Alberti that an artist should see the human body from the inside out - first imagining the skeleton, then the muscles and skin, and finally the clothing.
Leonardo’s science informed his art so deeply that when he wrote to the ruler of Milan seeking employment, he touted his engineering expertise in designing bridges, cannons, and tanks. Almost as an afterthought, he mentioned that he could paint. Leonardo was an artist, a scientist, an engineer.
Most of all, he was curious. So curious that in his thousands of pages of notes, he wrote things like: “Describe the tongue of the woodpecker…” That relentless curiosity drove him to create, explore, and innovate in ways no one had done before–or has since. Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452, in Anchiano, a village near Vinci, Italy, to Ser Piero and a local peasant girl, Caterina.
Walter Isaacson notes in his biography of Leonardo that he “…had the good luck to be born out of wedlock. ” Otherwise, he might have been expected to follow in his father's footsteps as a notary, which would not have suited his creative mind. He spent his early years with his mother and then paternal grandparents while his father worked in Florence.
After his stepmother died, Leonardo moved to Florence at the age of 12 to live with his father - a city at the heart of the art world. Because he was born illegitimate, Leonardo wasn’t sent to a formal Latin school. Instead, he attended an "abacus" school, where he learned practical mathematics for use in commerce.
He struggled with Latin his entire life and wrote primarily in Italian, often from right to left, to avoid smudging the ink as he was left-handed. He also had the habit of writing each letter backward. When others mocked him for his lack of formal classical education, Leonardo dismissed them as “Foolish folk!
Though I cannot quote from authors as they do, I shall rely on a far more worthy thing—on experience. ” At the age of 14, Leonardo began an apprenticeship his father arranged with one of his clients, renowned artist Andrea del Verrocchio. In Verrocchio’s workshop, Leonardo studied his sculpture of David, particularly the lifelike veins and muscles that conveyed subtle motion.
He later mastered the art of motion in The Last Supper, where the apostles react to Jesus’ announcement that one of them would betray him. Clustered in groups of three, each figure moves with emotion—gesturing and turning—while Judas, cloaked in shadow and clutching a bag of silver he was given to betray Jesus, leans away, revealing his guilt. Leonardo began to shine in Verrochio’s workshop.
It’s believed Leonardo painted the gleaming fish in Tobias and the Angel, which stands in stark contrast to Antonio del Pollaiuolo’s duller depiction, while Leonardo’s prancing dog at the bottom left is much more animated than Pollaiuolo’s stiffer portrayal. He also began to surpass his master; in The Baptism of Christ, Leonardo’s angel on the left is more dynamic than Verrocchio’s on the right. Using the sfumato technique, he softly blended tones around the angel's jawline, in contrast to Verrocchio's sharper, more defined edges.
He eventually opened his own workshop in 1477. But commissions were few, and several of his projects were left unfinished - which became a habit. Many handsome young men lived and worked under his roof, including Gian Giacomo Caprotti, known as Salai, meaning 'little devil' for his mischievous streak.
It’s widely believed Leonardo had a romantic relationship with Salai. After five frustrating years with little to show, Lorenzo de’ Medici, the ruler of Florence, sent Leonardo on a diplomatic mission to present a lyre, a musical instrument that Leonardo had mastered, to Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan. Leonardo seized the opportunity to offer his engineering services in his famous letter to the Duke.
The duke accepted, and Leonardo spent the next 17 years in Milan under Ludovico’s patronage. He was invited to advise on various architectural projects, including the central dome of the Milan Cathedral, one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in Europe. Though his design was not ultimately chosen, Leonardo applied his deep understanding of proportion and symmetry - principles he immortalized in his Vitruvian Man.
Leonardo believed the proportions of the human body could serve as a blueprint for architectural design. He drew inspiration from the 1st century BC Roman architect Vitruvius, who described proportions like: “The length of the foot is one sixth of the height of the body…” Vitruvius also explained that the man’s navel is the central point of the body and with arms and legs outstretched, a circle can be drawn around the body, while the height and arm span together form a perfect square. Although other artists have drawn versions of the Vitruvian Man, Leonardo’s stands out for its perfect balance of artistic beauty and scientific accuracy.
Leonardo was fascinated with the male body - most of his anatomical studies and drawings focus on the male form. He even made observations like: “When a man sits down, the distance from his seat to the top part of his head will be half of his height plus the thickness and length of the testicles. ” Leonardo dissected around 30 corpses, producing scientifically accurate and detailed renderings of the human form.
In his skull drawing, Leonardo illustrated the internal structure by showing the left half sawed off, marking the first accurate depiction of the frontal sinus behind the eyebrows. This was significant, as the understanding of human anatomy was limited at the time. His greatest achievements in studying the human body are related to the heart.
He showed that the heart is a muscle, suggested that arteries harden with age, and discovered how swirling currents of blood in the aorta help heart valves close properly. This fascination with swirling motions extended to his studies of water. He was especially captivated by water's destructive nature.
Deluge drawings depict apocalyptic scenes To Leonardo, water was a force to be reckoned with - and controlled. He explored diverting water from the Arno River to cut off Florence’s enemy, Pisa, from the sea by constructing dams. Leonardo designed a machine capable of moving 1 million tons of earth to redirect the water into a ditch.
He also sought to conquer the skies. He spent decades studying how birds fly, making extraordinarily detailed observations, such as: “There are some birds that move their wings more swiftly when they lower them than when they raise them…” As Walter Isaacson noted, “. .
. we never make the effort, in our daily lives, to observe ordinary phenomena so closely. ” Leonardo's ornithopter was a conceptual aircraft designed to fly by flapping its wings, demonstrating how humans might achieve flight.
He also sketched the aerial screw, an early design for a helicopter, with a spiral rotor intended to lift the machine off the ground. But 15th-century technology was not advanced enough to make his designs feasible. In other areas, though, particularly in map making, his innovations had an immediate impact.
In 1502, while in his 50s, he became the chief military architect and engineer to the ruthless Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI. Leonardo’s most significant contribution to warfare was creating a highly accurate map of Imola, a key city in Borgia’s military campaign. Maps at the time were largely symbolic and inaccurate.
By using a magnetic compass, he ensured his map was scientifically precise and practical, allowing Borgia to plan attacks, identify weak points, and position troops effectively. This marked the beginning of modern cartography. Before working for Borgia, Leonardo's talents as a military engineer were often overlooked.
The Duke of Milan primarily appreciated him for his artistic talent, which shined through in one of his most iconic works. In 1495, Leonardo began painting The Last Supper on the wall of a small church and monastery in the heart of Milan. Some days, he worked from dawn until dusk without eating or drinking, while on other days, he wouldn’t touch his paintbrush.
One of the most remarkable aspects of The Last Supper is Leonardo’s use of linear perspective. All the architectural lines converge at a single vanishing point located at Jesus’ forehead, cleverly drawing the viewer’s eye directly to Christ, emphasizing his central role in the scene. To create this perfect perspective, Leonardo hammered a small nail into the center of the wall by Jesus’ head and cut thin incisions to guide the lines.
Here’s something fascinating. . .
if you stand on the left side of the room, it almost feels like the painting spills out into the real space, like you’re part of the scene. Beyond the visual effects, Leonardo infused The Last Supper with incredible emotional depth. The painting captures the moment Christ announces, “He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me.
” The viewer is able to easily interpret each apostles’ thoughts and feelings through their gestures and expressions. As Leonardo said, “A picture of human figures ought to be done in such a way that the viewer may easily recognize, by means of their attitudes, the intentions of their minds. ” It required a different kind of ambition to mold and cast a massive bronze horse, 7 meters or 23 feet high.
Leonardo spent years designing the monument commissioned by the Duke of Milan in honor of his late father. He studied horses in detail and constructed a massive clay model. However, in 1494, the bronze intended for casting the statue was redirected to make cannons to defend against invading French forces.
French troops destroyed the clay model by using it for target practice. Ironically, it would later be the French who became some of Leonardo’s greatest supporters. After the Duke of Milan was overthrown in 1499, Leonardo spent over a decade wandering across Italy until he found the support of the French crown.
In 1516, King Francis I invited Leonardo to his court, appreciating his beautiful mind. Leonardo spent the rest of his life in a red brick manor next to the king’s castle in the Loire Valley, obsessively refining his most famous work. The Mona Lisa is widely believed to depict Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine silk merchant.
Leonardo's knowledge as both a scientist and an artist culminated in the Mona Lisa. His mastery of sfumato, the technique of blending tones to create soft transitions without harsh edges, gave the painting its lifelike quality. His deep understanding of light and shadow, especially how it interacts with curved surfaces, allowed him to craft subtle, realistic details like the play of light across her face.
The illusion that her eyes follow the viewer is a result of Leonardo’s precise use of linear perspective and shading. He carefully modeled the shadows around her eyes, giving them depth and expression. As Leonardo once said, “The eye, which is said to be the window of the soul…” was key to his approach in capturing emotion.
By painting her eyes to look directly at the viewer, and since perspective in a two-dimensional painting doesn’t change, they seem to follow you wherever you go. The most fascinating feature of the painting, her enigmatic smile, changes depending on where you focus, reflecting Leonardo’s understanding of visual perception. When viewed directly, the fine details and subtle shading around her mouth make her smile seem less pronounced.
But when seen in your peripheral vision, broader shapes and contrasts come into play, making her smile appear more pronounced. The artistic and scientific mastery in the Mona Lisa becomes even more apparent when compared to one of Leonardo’s earlier works, Ginevra de’ Benci, which, while impressive, lacks the same emotional depth and technical sophistication. The Mona Lisa was in his studio when he died.
In the final years of his life, Leonardo became captivated by the destructive power of water. His Deluge drawings show apocalyptic visions of nature’s overwhelming force as he faced his own mortality. Leonardo da Vinci passed away on May 2, 1519, at the age of 67, possibly due to a stroke.
Though he was not known to be religious, in his will, Leonardo wrote: “And first he commends his soul to our Lord, Almighty God, and to the glorious Virgin Mary”. “And first he commends his soul to our Lord, Almighty God, and to the Glorious Virgin Mary…” Leonardo da Vinci’s life and work represent the perfect balance between art and science. Science informed his art, and his art brought the beauty and complexity of science to life.
What’s remarkable is that he was largely self-taught. His boundless curiosity and intense observation of the world around him gave him an education that he didn’t get from a classroom. If you’re curious like Leonardo and want to deepen your understanding of math and science, there’s a hands-on way to improve your critical thinking and problem-solving skills that’s far more effective than watching lecture videos.
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Thanks for watching. For Newsthink, I’m Cindy Pom.
