The extraordinary paintings of Leonardo da Vinci

Detail from Leonardo's self portrait [Image: Photos.com]

Leonardo da Vinci

Structural approaches

Bigger on foundations than actually building, it's not easy to judge the success of Leonardo the architect.

From bbc.co.uk

Learn more about Leonardo and his works, explore his interactive studio, and browse his picture gallery at bbc.co.uk.

He was a master of many arts, but it was the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci that earned him the acclaim of his peers. Leonardo saw painting as superior to all other arts, with the power to be more real than reality.

To what would Leonardo da Vinci attribute his reputation as a great artist? What would he say in 1519 at the end of his life – about the secret of his success? First he might consider the kind of “art” at issue. He was the master of various arts. Though well known as a painter and draughtsman, Leonardo da Vinci also earned praise from his contemporaries for his work as a sculptor, architect, interior designer, engineer, scientist, inventor, philosopher, musician, and a skilled writer of letters and technical books.

Painting, for Leonardo, was the medium for which he knew he was most famous. Though his paintings were in demand, however, his other responsibilities to patrons and his studio left him with very little time to paint, or even to finish commissions. He produced relatively few paintings for an artist who had been active for nearly fifty years. Of the forty-three known paintings to which he contributed, only thirty-one exist today. Of these remaining paintings only ten are considered fully autograph – that is, produced without studio assistance.

Nonetheless, by the time he was fifty years of age – around 1502 – he had gained almost legendary status as a painter. He earned this reputation even though the general public had no access to most of his work.

Indeed, not even the marchioness of Mantua, Isabella d’Este, had seen a Leonardo when she had written in 1498 to the countess, Cecilia Gallerani Bergamini – an accomplished writer who happened to be at a young age the mistress of Isabella’s brother-in-law – requesting a loan of Cecilia’s portrait, The Lady with the Ermine (c. 1488). Shortly afterward, Leonardo produced the Portrait of Isabelle d’Este (c. 1500), a preparatory drawing based on the traditional format of ancient Roman cameo and low relief marble portraits. Despite requests from the influential marchioness, he never produced a painting of this drawing.

Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa

His most famous portrait, Mona Lisa, continued to receive finishing touches from 1503 through as late as 1517. Giorgio Vasari added to his detailed description of the painting of 1550 that,

“in this work of Leonardo’s there was a smile so pleasing, that it was a thing more divine than human to behold; and it was held to be something marvellous, since the reality was not more alive.”

Thanks to praise of this kind that he received throughout his lifetime, Leonardo da Vinci was known primarily as a painter. At the age of twenty he had the title of “painter” (dipintore) whereas his teacher, Verrocchio, was both “painter and sculptor.” This is according to the registrations of these artists in the Florentine confraternity of painters’ account book in 1472. Though Leonardo later earned other titles, such as “family architect and general engineer” for work in 1502, he could rely on continuous commissions for his paintings from 1472 onward.

Adoration of the Magi

Adoration of the Magi

Such requests came from prominent patrons. In 1481 he agreed to paint the Adoration of the Magi for the main altar of San Donato a Scopeto, a major Augustinian convent church near Florence. For the painting he had produced an under-drawing with an innovative organization of complex groups of individuals choreographed to perform simultaneously as independent actors, groups of actors, and as a cohesive group. Though the painting remained unfinished he had the opportunity in 1495-98 to revisit in his Last Supper his innovative approach to complex groups. That painting was immediately famous for its unprecedented orchestration of life-like gestures, expressions and movements consistent with the thirteen very different reactions of Christ and the Apostles.

The Last Supper

The Last Supper

By 1505, Leonardo da Vinci had pushed that pictorial technique to another level with his Battle of Anghiari, known only through studies and copies. Highly influential on Raphael and other contemporaries, this painting had proven that its innovative interlocking twists of straining figures form a convincing pattern of live movements. Even more influential was the activity of this group within the formal pyramidal format. To give a sense of the order of nature in the group, this classical pyramid balances the inner life of the composition.

Other influential examples of these pyramidal groups include the Virgin of the Rocks (c. 1508) and the Virgin and Child with St. Anne (drawing c. 1491-1508 and painting c. 1510-13).

Virgin of the Rocks

Virgin of the Rocks

Ten years prior to the Mona Lisa Leonardo had begun producing a series of verbal and visual arguments that only painting can be more real than reality; only painting can invent effects of the greatest sweetness (dolcezza) as well as the greatest terror (terrore). The verbal arguments are now part of his posthumously published Paragone, a formal series of nearly fifty detailed arguments that painting is superior to the arts of sculpture, music and poetry. In this case, his main argument is that painting is the most noble because it is a science: a branch of optics based on perspective. Given his tireless attention to this kind of optical science, to this concern for every visual detail he would likely attribute the secret of his success as an artist.

About our expert

Matthew Landrus studies and teaches art history at Oxford University, where he is completing a D Phil thesis on the foundations of Leonardo'ís art and engineering theories. Since the late 1980s, he has studied preparatory marks on paintings and manuscripts in Europe and India.