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 :. | Leonardo there Vinci and Andrea del Verrocchio, madonna with the child and angels | Virgin of the Rocks | The Adoration of the Magi | Adoration of the Magi | Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani |
Related Artists:
ulrica fredrica pasch
Ulrika Fredrika Pasch, född 10 juli 1735 i Stockholm, död 2 april 1796, var en svensk konstnär. Hon var dotter till konstnären Lorens Pasch d.ä. och Anna Helena Beckamn, syster till konstnären Lorens Pasch d.y. och brorsdotter till konstnären Johan Pasch. Ulrika Pasch började måla 1756 men hade tidigt tillsammans med sin bror fått undervisning av fadern. Hon blev hushållerska åt en släkting, men målade på fritiden. Under en tioårsperiod försörjde hon sin pappa och syster som professionell porträttmålare i Stockholm innan hennes bror återvände från sina studier utomlands 1766, då de började arbeta tillsammans. Deras samarbete beskrivs som harmoniskt och de valdes båda in i konstakademien 1773. Hon var inte den första kvinnan som valdes in i akademin, men hon var den första kvinnliga yrkeskonstnären som blev vald. Hon ska ha målat detaljerna på broderns tavlor, som klädesdetaljer och liknande. Ulrika hade en framgångsrik karriär och målade ofta porträtt av kungafamiljen och hovet. Hon ansökte dock upprepade gånger förgäves för en pension. Systern Helena Lovisa (1744-96) hushållade åt sina syskon. Trots att det sägs att hon själv var en ödmjuk person som aldrig framhävde sitt arbete, så är hon en av få kända självförsörjande kvinnliga yrkeskonstnärer i Skandinavien före artonhundratalet.
J.W. Wallander
1821-1888.
Maerten van heemskerck
Dutch Northern Renaissance Painter, 1498-1574 Dutch painter, draughtsman and print designer. He was among the second generation of Netherlandish artists to travel to Italy, where he was profoundly affected by the work of contemporary artists in Rome and by the examples of Classical sculpture to be seen in the city (see ROMANISM). On his return to the north, van Heemskerck had a long and successful career. His extensive oeuvre (over 100 paintings) comprises large altarpieces, portraits and smaller works (with both religious and mythological subjects). He also produced a vast number of drawings for prints. He helped spread the influence of Michelangelo and Giulio Romano in the northern Netherlands, through his strong, monumental style, with much emphasis on anatomical detail. He was thus an important figure in the dissemination of late Mannerism in northern Europe