Leonardo da Vinci and his Mona Lisa2011级英语一班马佳学号：201152010111Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519, Old Style)Leonardo da Vinci was born at a small town near Florence,where he was apprenticed to a painter.Da Vinci spent most of his childhood in his grandpa's farmland.He loved nature as well as art. The young Da Vinci was brilliant and intelligent and he had various interests such as singing and playing flute. He showed his great talent for painting when he was very young.Da Vinci's father supported him in painting and sent him to Florence ,when Da Vinci was 14 years old then, and learned from the great artist Andrea del Verrocchio.Verrocchio's home was at the famous centrum of art in that area, and many humanists at that time would like to pay a visit there, from which Da Vinci made acquaintances with many well-known artists, humanists and scientists.From 1482 to 1499, Da Vinci enjoyed his most peaceful time in art career in Milan. To avoid the war, Da Vinci left Milan to other city like Venice and did some study in science.In 1500, Da Vinci went back to Florence and began his creation of the great painting Mona Lisa. The prototype of the painting is the wife of Venice Duke.Along with The Last Supper and The Virgin of the Rocks, Mona Lisa Smile was another masterpiece of Da Vinci.Da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly and inventive imagination". He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, the man himself mysterious and remote"Da Vinci was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mon. a Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait and The Last Supper the most reproduced religious painting of all time, with their fame approached only by Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam. Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on items as varied as the euro coin, textbooks, and T-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings survive, the small number because of his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination.Nevertheless, these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts onthe nature of painting, compose a contribution to later generations of artists compare favorable with only by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.Mona Lisa(1503–1505/1507)—Louvre, Paris, FranceLeonardo used a pyramid design to place the woman simply and calmly in the space of the painting. Her folded hands form the front corner of the pyramid. Her breast, neck and face glow in the same light that models her hands. The light gives the variety of living surfaces an underlying geometry of spheres and circles. Leonardo referred to a seemingly simple formula for seated female figure: the images of seated Madonna, which were widespread at the time. He effectively modified this formula in order to create the visual impression of distance between the sitter and the observer. The armrest of the chair functions as a dividing element between Mona Lisa and the viewer.The woman sits markedly upright with her arms folded, which is also a sign of her reserved posture. Only her gaze is fixed on the observer and seems to welcome them to this silent communication. Since the brightly lit face is practically framed with various much darker elements (hair, veil, shadows), the observer's attraction to it is brought to even greater extent. The woman appears alive to an unusual measure, which Leonardo achieved by his new method not to draw the outlines, "mainly in two features: the corners of the mouth, and the corners of the eyes" , as firmly as that had been the use.The painting was among the first portraits to depict the sitter before an imaginary landscape and Leonardo was one of the first painters to use aerial perspective. The enigmatic woman is portrayed seated in what appears to be an open loggia with dark pillar bases on either side. Behind her a vast landscape recedes to icy mountains. Winding paths and a distant bridge give only the slightest indications of human presence. The sensuous curves of the woman's hair and clothing are echoed in the undulating imaginary valleys and rivers behind her. The blurred outlines, graceful figure, dramatic contrasts of light and dark, and overall feeling of calm are characteristic of Leonardo's style. Owing to the expressive synthesis that Leonardo achieved between sitter and landscape it is arguable whether Mona Lisa should be considered as a traditional portrait, for it represents an ideal rather than a real woman. The sense of overall harmony achieved in the painting—especially apparent in the sitter's faint smile—reflects the idea of a link connecting humanity and nature. Mona Lisa has no clearly visible eyebrows or eyelashes. Some researchers claim that it was common at this time for genteel women to pluck these hairs, as they were considered unsightly. In 2007, French engineer Pascal Cotte announced that his ultra high resolution scans of the painting provide evidence that Mona Lisa was originally painted with eyelashes and with better visible eyebrows, but that these had gradually disappeared over time, perhaps as a result of overcleaning. For modern viewers the nearly missing eyebrows add to the slightly abstract quality of the face.There has been much speculation regarding the painting's model andlandscape. For example, that Leonardo probably painted his model faithfully since her beauty is not seen as being among the best, "even when measured by late quattrocento (15th century) or even twenty-first century standards."Da Vinci, one of the three major artistic masters of the Italian Renaissance, also the whole European Renaissance's most perfect representative.In Leonardo's paintings, he added the people's images and their inner spirits to the the painting essence,and he also adhered to the "protrusion for the figures is the primary goal of the paintings", meanwhile,stressed that "appearance could show human nature and reveal his sin. "In addition,Leonardo da Vinci also pointed out that the human body is the most beautiful natural objects, "who do not respect life, who do not deserve to enjoy the live," this idea is a intense irony for the Asceticism of the Middle Ages.It is these ideas that make him become a symbol of the Human nature awakening.So, when we admire the Mona Lisa we are not only appreciating a portrait of a typical and ordinary woman in that time, and not only appreciating the virtuosity of Leonardo da Vinci as a painter, but also digesting the connotation of Humanism in Renaissance. It is the reason why the Mona Lisa shows an eternal smile which is never racked as a mystery, and always attract people of different ages to explore and find its magic.Today,Mona Lisa 's smile has become a symbol with multiple meanings, and also as a mystery what could cause people's infinite imagination. We do not know whether the master could predict that the painting would have been repeatedly studied and praised for centuries,at the moment he finished it. Faced with this works , people wonder what makes it become so supernatural and attractive.The heroin was just an ordinary woman , at best, her husband was a wealthy merchant. On appearance, she can only represent a maximum standard of beauty for that era. This is a portrait of an ordinary woman , perhaps it is so famous just because of being created by the master. When the painter exhausted several years of effort and poured his superb skills and overall aesthetic ideals into the painting , the figure in this painting could show her elegant posture and subtle smile to the world ,which just surpass the fashion and mien of that times and as well represent the soul of the art. This is the unique charm of the Renaissance — humanism. Mona Lisa witnessed it , and thus became a symbol of a new era and went down in history.。