Leonardo's life spanned the mid 15th and early 16th centuries, a period known as the Renaissance. During this time, artistic, social, scientific and political thought shifted from the ignorance and superstition of the Middle Ages to embrace reason, science, learning and tolerance.
Born in Italy on April 15, 1452 in the small mountain town of Vinci, Leonardo was the son of a lawyer. He grew up exposed to a tradition of painting. Legend has it that when Leonardo was young, his father asked him to paint a picture of a shield. Leonardo thought it would be much more interesting to paint a monster. He collected lizards, bats and other dead animals and tried to replicate them to create his masterpiece. He didn't even notice that the animals were rotting as he painted. When his father saw the painting, he was impressed by its realism and knew that Leonardo must be an artist.
Leonardo also experimented with light and shadow in his artwork to recreate the 3-dimensional form of objects. His paintings were among the first to show changes in the detail and color of an object to create an illusion of depth and distance. His most famous artworks include The Baptism of Christ, The Mona Lisa, The Last Supper and The Adoration of Three Kings.
An important aspect of Leonardo's work as an artist was his ability to combine art and science. He used his knowledge of anatomy and his observations of how objects moved and appeared naturally to complement his art. Since the 19th century, Western culture has considered art and science as separate schools of thought. Many consider Leonardo's work to symbolize the former state of unity between the two disciplines
Leonardo the Scientist During the later years of his life, Leonardo was more fascinated by science than he was by art. Leonardo was not limited by the technology of his time. He studied and thought of ideas that were possible. One of his greatest accomplishments is the range of topics that he studied including anatomy, zoology, botany, geology, optics, aerodynamics and hydrodynamics. His interests were so broad that he often became interested in something else and failed to finish what he started.
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