Italian High Renaissance Painter and Inventor, 1452-1519 Italian High Renaissance Painter and Inventor, 1452-1519 Florentine Renaissance man, genius, artist in all media, architect, military engineer. Possibly the most brilliantly creative man in European history, he advertised himself, first of all, as a military engineer. In a famous letter dated about 1481 to Ludovico Sforza, of which a copy survives in the Codice Atlantico in Milan, Leonardo asks for employment in that capacity. He had plans for bridges, very light and strong, and plans for destroying those of the enemy. He knew how to cut off water to besieged fortifications, and how to construct bridges, mantlets, scaling ladders, and other instruments. He designed cannon, very convenient and easy of transport, designed to fire small stones, almost in the manner of hail??grape- or case-shot (see ammunition, artillery). He offered cannon of very beautiful and useful shapes, quite different from those in common use and, where it is not possible to employ cannon ?? catapults, mangonels and trabocchi and other engines of wonderful efficacy not in general use. And he said he made armoured cars, safe and unassailable, which will enter the serried ranks of the enemy with their artillery ?? and behind them the infantry will be able to follow quite unharmed, and without any opposition. He also offered to design ships which can resist the fire of all the heaviest cannon, and powder and smoke. The large number of surviving drawings and notes on military art show that Leonardo claims were not without foundation, although most date from after the Sforza letter. Most of the drawings, including giant crossbows (see bows), appear to be improvements on existing machines rather than new inventions. One exception is the drawing of a tank dating from 1485-8 now in the British Museum??a flattened cone, propelled from inside by crankshafts, firing guns. Another design in the British Museum, for a machine with scythes revolving in the horizontal plane, dismembering bodies as it goes, is gruesomely fanciful. Most of the other drawings are in the Codice Atlantico in Milan but some are in the Royal Libraries at Windsor and Turin, in Venice, or the Louvre and the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. Two ingenious machines for continuously firing arrows, machine-gun style, powered by a treadmill are shown in the Codice Atlantico. A number of other sketches of bridges, water pumps, and canals could be for military or civil purposes: dual use technology. Leonardo lived at a time when the first artillery fortifications were appearing and the Codice Atlantico contains sketches of ingenious fortifications combining bastions, round towers, and truncated cones. Models constructed from the drawings and photographed in Calvi works reveal forts which would have looked strikingly modern in the 19th century, and might even feature in science fiction films today. On 18 August 1502 Cesare Borgia appointed Leonardo as his Military Engineer General, although no known building by Leonardo exists. Leonardo was also fascinated by flight. Thirteen pages with drawings for man-powered aeroplanes survive and there is one design for a helicoidal helicopter. Leonardo later realized the inadequacy of the power a man could generate and turned his attention to aerofoils. Had his enormous abilities been concentrated on one thing, he might have invented the modern glider.   Related Paintings of LEONARDO da Vinci :. | The Annunciation | Adoration of the Magi | Mona Lisa | The Annunciation | Reverse side of the portrait of Ginevra de' Benci |
Related Artists:
konrad magi
konrad magi(1878 to 1925),was an Estonian landscape painter. He was one of the most colour-sensitive Estonian painters of the first decades of the 20th century, and Magi works on motives of the island of Saaremaa are the first modern Estonian nature paintings. Magi received his elementary art education from the drawing courses of the German Artisans Society of Tartu (1899?C1902.) At the same time, he was keenly engaged in theater, violin, and various sports. Magi continued his art education as an unattached student in Saint Petersburg (1903?C1905.) In the autumn of 1907, he went to Paris. There Magi studied at a free academy. From 1908 to 1910, he lived in Norway. In 1912, Magi returned to Tartu, where he worked as an art teacher. In Åland, he created delicate plant vignettes in the style of Art Nouveau: Kahekesi (Two together; 1908; China ink drawing). In Paris, Magi was influenced by Impressionism and Fauvism, which had a significant impact on his colours: Lilleline vali majakesega (A flower field with a little house; 1908?C1909), Norra maastik manniga (A Norwegian landscape with a pine; 1910). From 1918, the influence of Expressionism is manifest, fostered by Mägi extreme sensitivity and emotional response to the anxious times: Puhajarv (Lake Puha); 1918?C1920), Otepaa maastik (Landscape of Otepaa; 1918?C1920). Also influenced by Expressionism are his big figure compositions Piet?? (1919), Kolgata (Golgatha; 1921). Konrad Magi - Rannamaastik (Beach landscape)Magi new artistic period, begun on a trip to Italy, brought calmer tempers: Varemed Capril (Ruins in Capri; 1922?C1923). Along with nature pictures, he painted flowers and portraits. Magi mostly beautiful female models express the Art Nouveau ideal of beauty: Holsti (1916). In his later portraits from the 1920s, a more serious temper is expressed: Madonna (1923?C1924).
Chevannes, Pierre Puvis de
French Symbolist Painter, 1824-1898
LINGELBACH, Johannes
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1622-1674 German painter, active in the Netherlands and Italy. By 1634 his family had settled in Amsterdam, where presumably Lingelbach trained as a painter. According to Houbraken, he visited France in 1642 and arrived in Italy two years later. However, he is not mentioned in any document of 1644, although he is recorded in Rome from 1647 to 1649. The artist left Rome in 1650 and by 1653 was back in Amsterdam, where he remained until his death. Lingelbach is perhaps the only one of the Dutch Italianates with a catalogue of numerous signed and dated works to document his artistic development. The first two signed works are The Blacksmith (1650; Rome, Melmeluzzi priv. col., see Briganti, Trezzani and Laureati, fig. 10.1) and Self-portrait with Violin (1650; Zurich, Ksthaus). Unfortunately no certain works survive from the previous years. Kren (1982) attributed a series of works depicting Roman trades, some formerly ascribed to Pieter van Laer, to Lingelbach's early career. The original group consisted of three small paintings: the Acquavita-seller, the Cake-seller and The Tobacconist (all Rome, Pal. Corsini). While these paintings have some striking points in common with the Melmeluzzi Blacksmith of 1650 and the signed Dentist on Horseback (1651; Amsterdam, Rijksmus.), it is still uncertain whether they belong to Lingelbach's pre-1650 work or are by another hand