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 :. | Hi Hieronymus | The Virgin and Child with St Anne (detail) s | Annunciation | Lady with Ermine | Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist (mk08) |
Related Artists:
Charles Altamont Doyle
1832-1893 was a Victorian artist. He was the brother of the artist Richard Doyle, and the son of the artist John Doyle. Although the family was Irish, Doyle was born and raised in England. In 1849 he moved to Edinburgh where he met Mary Foley. They were married on 31 July 1855. Their children included Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, John Francis Innes Hay Doyle (known as Innes or Duff), and Jane Adelaide Rose Foley n??e Doyle (known as Ida). Doyle was not as successful an artist as he wished, and suffered depression and alcoholism. His paintings, which were generally of fairies, such as "A Dance Around The Moon", or similar fantasy scenes, reflected this, becoming more macabre over time. In 1881 Doyle was committed to a nursing home specialising in alcoholism. While there, his depression grew worse, and he began suffering epileptic seizures. Following a violent escape attempt he was sent to Sunnyside, Montrose Royal Lunatic Asylum, where he continued to paint. He died in Crighton Royal Institution in 1893.
Ernest Lawson
1873-1939 Ernest Lawson Galleries Ernest Lawson (March 22, 1873 ?C December 18, 1939) was a Canadian-American painter and a member of The Eight, a group of artists which included the group's leader Robert Henri, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, Arthur B. Davies, Maurice Prendergast, George Luks, and William J. Glackens. Lawson was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Though Lawson mostly painted landscapes, he also did some realistic urban scenes which were shown at the 1908 exihibition of The Eight. His painting style is heavily influenced by Impressionism, especially the style of John Henry Twachtman, Alfred Sisley, and J. Alden Weir. Lawson exhibited as a member of the Canadian Art Club from 1911 to 1915. He died in Miami Beach, Florida in 1939.
Jan Baptiste Vanmour
1671-1737 was a Flemish-French painter, remembered for his detailed portrayal of life in the Ottoman Empire during the Tulip Era and the rule of Sultan Ahmed III. Van Mour was a native of Valenciennes, a Flemish town that at he time of his birth belonged to the Spanish Netherlands, but since 1678 to France. He studied art in the studio of Jacques-Albert Gerin, and his work attracted the attention of an aristocrat and statesman of the time, Marquis Charles de Ferriol. Van Mour was invited to go to Istanbul when De Ferriol was appointed there as the French Ambassador in 1699. De Ferriol commissioned van Mour to do one hundred portraits of the local people. In 1711 De Ferriol returned to France and van Mour worked for a variety of other diplomats. In the meantime De Ferriol published a series of one hundred engravings (after the paintings) in Recueil de cent estampes representant differentes nations du Levant. The book had a great influence in Western Europe and was published in at least five languages. Painting audiences with the Sultan became van Mour's speciality; he only had to change the setting and a few faces. Van Mour worked with assistants to fulfill all his obligations. In 1725 he was granted the extraordinary title of Peintre Ordinaire du Roy en Levant in recognition of both his and the Levant's importance to the French government. In 1727 the Dutch ambassador Cornelis Calkoen asked Van Mour to record his audience with Sultan Ahmed III on canvas. Van Mour was allowed to enter the palace during these ceremonies accompanying the ambassador and his retinue; therefore, he was familiar with the special protocol that prevailed in the Ottoman court for ambassador's receptions. Calkoen took many paintings of Jean-Baptiste van Mour with him, when he was appointed as ambassador in Dresden for the Dutch Republic.