The Renaissance: Leonardo da Vinci

Vitruvian Man
Originally uploaded by Chickey.

Vitruvian Man, above, is one of the world's most famous pen-and-ink sketches. In it Leonardo illustrated the principles of design as established by the Roman architect, Vitruvius, and gave us science-and-art synthesis. It is also called the Canon (collected knowledge) of Proportions.

Our approximate date for Leonardo and this sketch will be 1500.

To be sketched in class are versions of
- Vitruvian man
- the Mona Lisa (beauty and strangeness)

Also presented in video and via the Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (from the school library) are a study of the horse (equus, Latin), the embryo in womb, a helicopter and a skeletal human arm.

Fresco - painting in wet plaster.


The Medici family were the benefactors of artists, engineers and thinkers in Florence and Milan around 1500. The Medici were wealthy bankers. The principal business of of Florence was in woolen fabrics and other textiles.

Florence and Rome were the centers of the Renaissance: centers of scholarship and art.

Humanism developed during this era, as artists and writers put emphasis on the capabilities of man as opposed to focusing exclusively on God.

Greek and Roman learning, forgotten for some 1000 years, was the material the stimulated the Renaissance artists.

Classes also sketched el Duomo (the dome), or the cathedral of Florence, as a symbol of the Renaissance.

The dates of the Medieval (middle) Era: about 700 AD to 1500 AD.