Horse Leonardo da Vinci. The only surviving sculpture by Leonardo da Vinci. Or not? He copied his legendary diaries from others

This story is very old, but amazing. Leonardo da Vinci in 1841 planned to make an equestrian statue of Lodovico Sforza in Milan. And made, only plaster, 7 meters high. It was necessary to cast a statue from bronze. But the war began. The metal purchased with donations from the citizens of Milan went to the cannons. The plaster horse was shot by the French who entered the city. And the brilliant idea of the great Leonardo remained unrealized. Numerous sketches and calculations have been preserved. And only in our days there were people who, according to the sketches of Leonardo da Vinci, nevertheless cast this beautiful and powerful sculpture ... =

LEONARDO DA VINCI. IMPLEMENTED IDEA In 1997, a statue of a horse, which had been expected here for a long time, was delivered by a special flight from New York to Milan. The beauty of the sculpture, the meticulous study of all the anatomical details of the horse, and, of course, its size (height without a pedestal is about 7.5 meters) immediately attracted and continue to attract special attention to it. But the main thing that fills the hearts of Milanese (and not only Milanese) with pride when looking at such a unique creation of architects is that this unusual sculpture is a restored creation of the great Italian and genius of world culture Leonardo da Vinci. Today, Leonardo's horse has become one of the symbols of Milan, along with such masterpieces of architecture and visual arts like the Duomo Cathedral, Sforza Castle and " The last supper "in the former refectory of the monastery" Santa Maria della Grazie. " Duke of Milan Lodovico Sforza, a well-known patron of the arts and patron of the arts. The proposal was accepted, and from that time began a long and fruitful Milanese period of Leonardo's life and work. During these years he wrote the famous "Last Supper", "Madonna of the Rocks", "Lady with ermine ", decorated the walls of the della Asta hall in the Sforza castle with frescoes. Largely thanks to Leonardo and the architect Donato Bramante, during the reign of Lodovico, the Sforza castle became one of the most beautiful and richest ducal palaces in Italy. Among other works to improve the architecture and interiors of this of the castle, he began to implement another of his ideas - the creation of a majestic bronze equestrian sculpture ry with a rider, which would symbolize Lodovico's father, Duke Francesco Sforza, would serve as a monument to him and would be installed in the square in front of the Sforza castle, which at that time was already a ducal residence. Leonardo made a huge number of sketches and sketches of the figure of the horse, on which Francesco was supposed to sit, and finally made his choice. Here is one of the sketches that served as the basis for the creation of the sculpture. It took almost a decade to prepare and create a plaster model of a horse - Leonardo's enormous demands on the subtlety of conveying anatomical and artistic details of the sculpture required constant refinements and changes. And its size was impressive - without a rider, it reached a height of more than seven meters, and its subsequent casting in bronze required many tons of copper. The model, therefore, was not ready and put on display until 1493. It is believed that it was this event that made Leonardo da Vinci famous. Then Leonardo was supposed to start sculpting the horseman, but the work on the "Last Supper", which began in 1495, and the collection of donations for the purchase of copper delayed the sculpting of this figure, and subsequent unexpected circumstances interrupted it altogether. In 1499, the Milanese, dissatisfied with the rule of Lodovico, rebelled, and in the absence of the duke, they let the troops of the French king Louis XII, who claimed Milan, into their city. Although these troops did not stay here for long, they destroyed the plaster model of the horse created by Leonardo, turning it into a target for their shooting exercises. Only a pile of plaster debris remained from her. And the copper, which had allegedly been harvested by this time, was spent by Lodovico on the manufacture of cannons, which, by the way, could not help him - he was soon given to the French and died in 1508 in prison. The Milanese period of Leonardo's life and work ended there, and he returned to Florence. *** The idea to revive the lost equestrian statue arose almost half a millennium after the loss of this masterpiece, in 1977, by the former American military pilot and amateur sculptor Charles Dent. He read an essay on "Leonardo's horse" in National Geographic magazine, and, as they write about it, was shocked by the barbarity of the French troops, who destroyed this sculptural masterpiece. At the same time, he had certain associations with the bombing that Italy was subjected to during the Second World War (the US aviation also participated in them), which led to the destruction of many historical monuments ... Dent sought out the original sketches of drawings of this horse made by Leonardo in the Madrid library, and decided to use donations to implement the idea of its author - to cast a bronze sculpture as it was sculpted from plaster by Leonardo da Vinci. By the way, the final goal of his Dent put the return of sculpture to Milan, as a kind of repentance for the destruction during the bombing of cultural monuments of Italy. A noble goal, isn't it? The rest of his life (he died in 1994) Charles Dent devoted to the realization of his idea, but he did not manage to finish this work, although he created a model of the horse in "natural" (ie, the same as Leonardo's) size ... However, according to experts, this model required improvement, and after Dent's death, the sculptor Nina Akamo, an American of Japanese descent, who was fascinated by the idea of Dent, was involved in the work. Finally, in 1997, the final model was finished, and a bronze figure of a huge horse that had risen from Leonardo's sketches was cast from it. This sculpture weighed 13 tons, its height is 7.5 meters. As already mentioned in the preface, she was sent from New York to Milan on a special flight of the Italian airline. Unfortunately, the bronze colossus could not be installed where Leonardo and Dent wanted to see it - in the square in front of the Sforza castle. The Milan mayor and city council found another place for him, in a new park near the San Siro racecourse. This photograph, taken in Milan, has a slight drawback - looking at it does not give the impression of all the monumentality of this creation of architects, since there is no figure or object on it, the size of which could be compared with the size of the sculpture .. Fortunately, this drawback another photograph is deprived. But before demonstrating it, I want to tell you that copies of the sculpture installed in Milan are available in the USA in Frederik Mejer Gardens and Sculpture Park, near Grand Rapids, Michigan (a plaster copy is installed here, painted in bronze), and in Japan (copy made of fiberglass, gilded). Oleg Zhdanov (nickname oldet) from Detroit published this magnificent photo of Leonardo's horse installed in Meyer Park near Grand Rapids. This photo clearly shows the contrast between the grandeur of the sculpture, made from drawings by Leonardo and the memories of his contemporaries, and the figurine of a child running at the feet of a horse. By the way, pay attention - this horse stands without a pedestal, directly on the park ground! Having looked at this picture, you can imagine in your imagination how unique and even more majestic the Milanese monument in the form of Francesco Sforza sitting on this horse would have been if Leonardo had managed to fully implement his idea in due time. Well, what Charles Dent and Nina Akamo managed to do can be safely called the embodiment of the idea of the great Leonardo. A. Shurygin, 2010

Where is the famous Da Vinci Horse? Of course, in your beloved Italy, in Milan!

The history of Da Vinci's horse sculpture is unusual.

The famous Sforzo Castle is probably the most beautiful building in Milan.

Da Vinci's horse was supposed to sit in front of him on the square, where the beautiful one is now.

The sculpture of Leonardo's Horse even stood here for some time. True, it was a clay version.

What is the history of the real Da Vinci Horse sculpture?

Leonardo wanted to erect the largest horse statue to immortalize the father of his patron Louis Sforza. He worked on Leonardo's project for 10 years, visited the most elite equestrian yards, made sketches, looked at the existing equestrian statues. After 10 years, he embodied his idea in clay, the horse was installed exactly in the place where the entire statue with the rider was to be installed later.

The events took place at the end of the XXV century, by this time Leonardo had already painted the Lady with the Ermine, Madonna of the Rocks and the Last Supper, and became famous during his lifetime, thanks to this monument to the Horse. Money was already being raised to cast the original and install a clay sculpture in place. And then the unexpected happened, they entered and began to practice shooting at the clay horse. This could have been a sad end for Da Vinci's Horse, had it not been a miracle. This is how I view this fact.

Almost 500 years later, an American aviator and amateur sculptor Charles Dent, having read an article in National Geographic, was outraged by this fact. It was Charles Dent who made it his life's work to recreate the Da Vinci Horse monument. In 1977 Charles Dent begins the reconstruction of the sculpture. The project took a lot of time and money - 15 years and about $ 2.5 million. Dent died in 1994, the sculpture was never completed. Fortunately, Japanese-American sculptor Nina Akama has completed this project. In 1997, on a special plane flight, this horse was delivered from America to. Of course, they wanted to install with the Da Vinci Horse culture on the square near the Sforzesco castle, but the mayor's office did not agree, and the sculpture was installed here, at the hippodrome IPPODROMO DEL GALOPPO where a horse should be.

Da Vinci's horse stands on two limbs and seems to float in the air. Every muscle, every relief is clearly visible. At the same time, the sculpture weighs 13 tons, and the height is 7.5 meters without a pedestal, in a word, Da Vinci's Horse is a masterpiece of Leonardo.

There is an impressive memorial plaque with the names of all who participated in the reconstruction of Da Vinci's Horse. Many thanks to them. And first of all, Charles Dent, who was able to inspire with his idea. Someone always says: It's impossible! And at the same time, there are often those who do this impossible!

The hippodrome is located close to the San Siro stadium, you just need to turn your back to it and you immediately open a view of the stadium.

Going to San Siro, our plans included seeing this masterpiece on the way. And so it all happened.

By the way, in the area of the stadium there are many wonderful monuments, there is even a horse, but Da Vinci's Horse is at the hippodrome.

This story of Da Vinci's Horse is unusual in my opinion.

Another reconstruction project for Da Vinci's Horse culminated in the installation of a sculpture in the Meyer Gardens. It was funded by billionaire Frederick Meyer, and the location of the Horse is quite obvious.

How to get to the San Siro stadium and the Hippodrome, read the next post.

Wondering how I manage to turn dreams into history? Subscribe to the free mailing listMaybe my way of solving this problem will suit you.

When it comes to the Renaissance, his name is the first thing that comes to mind. The imagination immediately recreates the image of an unsurpassed and mysterious master and his creations. Many people think that Leo was the only one in the Renaissance who did anything at all. But once you analyze the facts, it becomes clear that Leonardo's story is complete nonsense.

This man had a lot of ideas and among them, undoubtedly, there are many interesting ones. But the truth that we will discover will bring you back to earth. There is no doubt that this man was much more talented than most of us, but in every area of da Vinci's work there was always someone who surpassed him in this. In the Renaissance, geniuses were like filth. As soon as you walk out onto the streets of Italy in the 16th century, you would immediately meet a talented painter who attached more importance to his works than they deserved. So: if you compare the legacy of Leonardo with that of his contemporaries, then his greatness will cease to seem so grandiose.

It is hardly possible to call da Vinci's works in painting masterpieces, they differ little from the works of his contemporaries.

Even if you do not deny the fact that Mona Lisa is the greatest work of art of all times and peoples (this has been repeated to us since childhood), then having looked at other works of that time, you will agree that it is quite trivial for itself. Except, perhaps, for the fact that she has no eyebrows at all.

Most of Leonardo's paintings are the most common portraits and biblical scenes, as are all works of art of the time. And if you line them up, you can hardly choose the most outstanding one. Just a few decades later, Titian and Raphael created paintings that surpass those of Leonardo. Those who have seen with their own eyes the work of Caravaggio, a contemporary of da Vinci, famous for writing biblical scenes, will easily confirm that Leonardo's works pale in comparison with his masterpieces.

The famous fresco "The Last Supper" is devoid of style. In addition, any professional artist will confirm that with technical side this work was a failure - the fresco began to crumble during Leonardo's lifetime, this happened from a lack of knowledge - da Vinci did not know the rules for working with the egg yolk paint he used. And this was not his only joint.

Da Vinci lost to Michelangelo in a one-on-one battle

His fresco on the wall of the Palazzio Vecchio did not work due to the lack of knowledge of the master

Leonardo managed to show his professionalism not only in the work of "The Last Supper". In a competition with Michelangelo to paint the opposite walls of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, where, according to the original idea, the greatest works of that time were supposed to appear, da Vinci lost immediately. He was not proficient in his craft to carry out the project.

He began to apply oil paint to an unprepared wall. The colors in his work "The Battle of Anghiari" instantly faded under the influence of the humid air, he could not recover from this blow. Leonardo left the "battlefield" in confusion, the competition ended almost without beginning. Michelangelo and his work "The Battle of Cachin" emerged victorious in this "war".

But fate was not favorable to Michelangelo: this work was destroyed by a crowd of haters of his talent, and a few years later an unknown artist painted over the wall.

The most famous inventions of Leonardo were not invented by him.

In fact, this is just a spinning toy, not an aircraft.

Da Vinci is known all over the world as a first-class inventor. But here, too, there is a small but: this is pure lie.

His famous invention, the helicopter, was actually a simple turntable. The design was completely copied from a Chinese toy, the task of which was not to rise into the air, it just spun in place. For those who have even a little understanding of aerodynamics, it is obvious that his helicopter will not be able to take off. Da Vinci did not understand anything in aerodynamics and physics of motion, did not realize that an engine was needed for the operation of an aircraft.

He certainly gave impetus to the development of innovative machines, for example, a hang glider, but he was far from the first to design such things, and not even the second. The other two - an English monk and a Muslim polymath Abbas ibn Firnas - were the first to design and test a hang glider, at the risk of flying off a cliff. Some historians attribute to him sketches of existing devices in his notebooks, but research proves the opposite.

You cannot call him an outstanding sculptor

The execution of the statue had to be stopped even at the drawing stage due to the high cost of the project

If you are trying to find sculptures of Leonardo in order to somehow revive him, we hasten to upset you: you will not find them. The only real sculpture that he could create is a bronze statue of a horse with a massive base that supports the rider and the horse. An important point: The advantage of bronze over marble is that it does not need a support when properly balanced. Leonardo did not know this. This fact allows us to emphasize da Vinci's unprofessionalism and once again debunk the myth of his genius.

If you compare Leonardo with someone like Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, then the bottomless chasm between a true master and a dilettante becomes apparent. The crown of Bernini's skill is “The Rape of Proserpine”. The details are so skillfully executed on marble that we can see believable folds of skin under the fingers, a tear on the cheek, locks of hair flying in the wind - and all this is done so beautifully that we forget that we have an image taken from the tangled Greek mythology. ...

A huge statue with a horse was made by Leonardo by order of a Milanese count, but it was never assembled into a single whole, since Leonardo had no idea how to do it. The count, whose name was Ludovico Sforza, did not hide his surprise at Leonardo's relaxed attitude. In this project, the matter did not go beyond the sketch, it happened for the same reason that the "Battle of Anghiari" was never completed - Leonardo simply did not have enough skill. After the maestro took a little time, the count stopped funding the project, but Sforza could quickly find a replacement for Leonardo and implement the idea with a statue of a rider.

His real inventions had no practical application

He created useless things and seemed to understand it.

Da Vinci's inventions were amazing, weren't they? It's fair if you shout it on the screen while reading our article, but more often than not, his inventions were thoughtless and doomed to failure. It is for this reason that they remained on paper, many of them were abandoned in the early stages of development, since in order to activate them, many additional devices or serious revision of the drawing were required.

Sketches make up a large part of Leonardo da Vinci's legacy. But in order to boldly call yourself an inventor, it is not easy to draw an idea, but also to bring it to life, to refine the flaws and bring it to mind. We cannot provide evidence that da Vinci designed his inventions. The robot soldier he created was just a gimmick; the structure could only function after being refined by modern engineers.

His tank, after testing in the real world, turned out to be very slow even on a perfectly dry and level surface (and in the 15th century, conditions on the field were clearly worse), the car shook violently, and people inside were stunned by cannon shots. In addition, self-firing vehicles were not new, and anyone who says that it was da Vinci who changed military affairs is deeply mistaken.

The assumption that da Vinci invented a perpetual motion machine is also wrong. Any physicist since the 18th century will confirm that such a machine cannot be created. Modern science also denies this fact. Leonardo was not the creator of this idea and was not the one who would have brought it to mind. We can no longer pretend that he was ahead of his time, his mindset was quite mediocre for that era.

While Leonardo was inventing the parachute, the practical use of which became possible only 400 years later, he gave up, inventing the conical shape of the canopy (yes, it is exactly what is used today).

He copied his legendary diaries from others

Some scholars suggest that Leo simply copied the diaries of his contemporaries.

Da Vinci's diaries are really interesting, they actually have a lot of ideas that, if successfully completed, could change the world. But modern scholars argue that these records are just copies ... copies. Mariano Taccola was another eccentric figure in Italy of that time, it was from his works that Leonardo drew what became his hallmark - "Vitruvian Man". Many historians also believe that the mathematician Giacomo Andrea is also noteworthy.

Leonardo did not invent an underwater bomb either; he borrowed his "death ray" from Archimedes. The flywheel, which never found application in practice, was also invented long before Da Vinci by some guy whose name is of little interest to us.

It is also interesting that many of his inventions overlap with the inventions of the Chinese, and this makes some sense, given the fact that it was the Chinese civilization that gave the world many modern benefits: a press for printing, guns, rockets, rifles and paper back in the pre-Colombian time.

Leo was not a respected engineer of his day.

He designed the bridge, but it was never built

His engineering accomplishments are even worse than you might imagine: he did not complete any orders on time. In addition to building the bridge, which never took place, and the crazy idea of reversing the Arno River, which failed (the earthen dams were destroyed by the rainstorm), there were several projects in Venice. For example, a gutter that was not built because the estimate was out of budget. Da Vinci did not bring to life a single work. He just unsubstantiated that he is a talented civil engineer. Any engineer will tell you that creating a design project for something is not a sign of skill.

His ideas were too distant from reality or too complex and expensive to implement. They did not solve any issues, they were just a farce. When a team of Norwegians, out of curiosity, tried to implement one of Leonardo's ideas, they faced the same problem as the Italian earls of the 16th century: it was too expensive.

His research in anatomy was not all that significant.

The image of the Vitruvian man is known to everyone

The use of corpses for the purpose of studying anatomy was forbidden by the church, so Leonardo's drawings were given greater importance. But his contemporaries - Michelangelo, Durer, Amusco and Vesalius - all of them also conducted research in the field of anatomy, so da Vinci was again not the only one.

Leonardo was careful with his manuscripts, he did not want anyone to use the knowledge he had gained. Charles Etienne created the most detailed diary on the anatomy of the human body, where he described all the internal organs, muscles, arteries, veins, while Leo's notes were kept under lock and key for several centuries. His achievements in the field of science are again questionable, he did not stand out among his contemporaries.

Didn't leave any really significant legacy

Unfortunately, none of Leo's ideas ever became a hypothesis.

We used to think that Leonardo was a genius, in fact he did not have the proper knowledge in any of the sciences, be it chemistry, medicine, sociology, astronomy, mathematics or physics. He left behind neither scientific works, nor just ideas or technologies, even his own theories such as Bacon or Newton.

His only independent idea was the hypothesis that the Flood probably never happened. Such conclusions were made on the basis of observations of rocks, which the maestro, of course, kept with him, instead of making them public. He was a talented scientist, had an idea of the structure of the human body, but it would be dishonest to call him a genius of science, because there were other great people at that time: Gilbert, Fibonacci, Brahe, Mercator, who also contributed to the development of public consciousness of the Renaissance.

He was not the best role model.

During the Renaissance there were a great many scientists, inventors, researchers who deserve more attention than da Vinci

Leonardo was not stubborn. Many great minds could change their point of view under the pressure of public opinion.

Few could boast of a position better than Leonardo: he had the best teachers and mentors. Master Leonardo Filippo Brunellesci was a goldsmith who was as passionate about architecture and construction as da Vinci. But that's where the similarities end. The master was commissioned to finish the dome of the Florentine cathedral and he did it, although before him the architects could not finish the construction for decades. He didn’t just outflank his rival, he designed the cranes with which he was able to complete the project. The innovations he developed have become a cultural and architectural heritage.

While da Vinci was just starting to study anatomy, Bartolomeo Eustashi was already teaching and writing books on dentistry. internal structure ear, created visual models, diagrams close to modern ones. A part of the body was even named in his honor.

Giordano Bruno was a scientist, poet, mathematician and mystic. He became famous for the assumption that the stars are small suns and that they, too, have their own planets. He also put forward the assumption of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations, his ideas were close to the ideas of modern scientists. In matters of religion, he was ahead of Copernicus and refuted, as it seemed to him, stupid assumptions. As a reward for this, he was executed.

Meanwhile, da Vinci was inventing incredible machines that were impossible to sell to customers. Most likely, he understood this, but continued to create. While others gave their lives defending their scientific or religious views, da Vinci bowed at the feet of despots and aristocrats.

Like any historically significant person, Leonardo has admirers and opponents. During his life, he created many objects of science and art, but if you compare them with the works of his contemporaries, it becomes clear that they are all quite trivial.

During the Renaissance there were many brilliant sculptors, painters, musicians, inventors. Leonardo da Vinci stands out strongly against their background. He created musical instruments, he owns many engineering inventions, wrote paintings, sculptures and much more.

His external data are also striking: tall, angelic appearance and extraordinary strength. Let's get acquainted with the genius of Leonardo da Vinci, short biography will tell his main achievements.

Biography facts

He was born near Florence in the small town of Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci was the illegitimate son of a famous and wealthy notary. His mother is an ordinary peasant woman. Since his father had no other children, at the age of 4 he took little Leonardo to him. The boy showed an extraordinary intelligence and affable character from an early age, and he quickly became a favorite in the family.

To understand how the genius of Leonardo da Vinci developed, a short biography can be presented as follows:

At the age of 14, he entered Verrocchio's workshop, where he studied drawing and sculpture.
In 1480 he moved to Milan, where he founded the Academy of Arts.
In 1499 he left Milan and began to move from city to city, where he built defensive structures. In the same period, his famous rivalry with Michelangelo begins.
Since 1513 he has been working in Rome. Under Francis I, he became a court sage.

Leonardo died in 1519. As he believed, nothing that he began was completed to the end.

Creative way

The work of Leonardo da Vinci, a brief biography of which was outlined above, can be divided into three stages.

Early period. Many works of the great painter were unfinished, such is the "Adoration of the Magi" for the monastery of San Donato. During this period, the paintings "Benois Madonna", "Annunciation" were painted. Despite his young age, the painter has already demonstrated great skill in his paintings.
The mature period of Leonardo's work took place in Milan, where he planned to pursue a career as an engineer. The most popular piece written at this time was The Last Supper, and at the same time he began work on the Mona Lisa.
In the late period of his creative work, the painting "John the Baptist" and a series of drawings "The Flood" were created.

Painting has always supplemented science for Leonardo da Vinci, as he strove to fix reality.

Inventions

A short biography cannot fully convey the contribution to science of Leonardo da Vinci. However, the most famous and valuable discoveries of the scientist can be noted.

He made the greatest contribution to mechanics, this can be seen from many of his drawings. Leonardo da Vinci investigated the fall of the body, the centers of gravity of the pyramids, and more.
He invented a car made of wood that was powered by two springs. A brake was provided in the mechanism of the car.
He invented a spacesuit, fins and a submarine, as well as a way to dive to depths without using a spacesuit with a special gas mixture.
The study of the flight of a dragonfly led to the creation of several variants of wings for humans. The experiments were unsuccessful. However, then the scientist came up with a parachute.
He was involved in developments in the military industry. One of his suggestions was chariots with cannons. He came up with a prototype of an battleship and a tank.
Leonardo da Vinci made many developments in construction. Arch bridges, drainage machines and cranes are all his inventions.

There is no man in history like Leonardo da Vinci. That is why many consider him an alien from other worlds.

Da Vinci's Five Secrets

Today, many scientists are still puzzling over the legacy left by the great man of a past era. Although it is not worth calling Leonardo da Vinci that, he predicted a lot, and foresaw even more, creating his unique masterpieces and striking with the breadth of knowledge and thought. We offer you five secrets of the great Master, which help to lift the veil of secrecy over his works.

Encryption

The master encrypted a lot so as not to submit ideas open, but to wait a little until humanity “matures, grows up” to them. Equally good with both hands, da Vinci wrote with his left, the smallest font, and even from right to left, and often in mirror image. Riddles, metaphors, rebuses - this is what is found on every line, in every piece. Never signing his works, the Master left his marks, visible only to an attentive researcher. For example, after many centuries, scientists discovered that by looking closely at his paintings, you can find the symbol of a flying bird. Or the famous "Benois Madonna", found among the itinerant actors who carried the canvas as a home icon.

Sfumato

The idea of dispersion belongs also to the great mystifier. Take a closer look at the canvases, all objects do not reveal clear edges, like in life: a smooth flow of some images into others, blurring, scattering - everything breathes, lives, awakening fantasies and thoughts. By the way, the Master often advised to practice such a vision, peering into water stains, mud rushes or ash heaps. Often he deliberately fumigated workrooms with smoke in order to see in the clubs what was hidden beyond the bounds of reasonable sight.

Look at famous painting- the smile of "Mona Lisa" from different angles is gentle, then a little arrogant and even predatory. The knowledge gained through the study of many sciences gave the Master the opportunity to invent perfect mechanisms that are becoming available only now. For example, this is the effect of wave propagation, the penetrating power of light, oscillatory motion ... yes, there is a lot of things that still have to be disassembled, not even by us, but by our descendants.

Analogies

Analogies are the main thing in all the works of the Master. The advantage over accuracy, when the third follows from two conclusions of the mind, is the inevitability of any analogy. And in the quirkiness and drawing absolutely mind-blowing parallels to da Vinci, there is still no equal. One way or another, all of his works have some ideas that do not fit with each other: the famous illustration “ golden ratio" - one of them. With the limbs apart and apart, a person fits into a circle, with closed in a square, and slightly raising his arms into a cross. It was this kind of "mill" that gave the Florentine magician the idea of creating churches where the altar is placed exactly in the middle, and the worshipers stand in a circle. By the way, the engineers liked the same idea - this is how the ball bearing appeared.

Counterpost

The definition means the opposition of opposites and the creation of a certain type of movement. Example - sculptural image a huge steed in Corte Vecchio. There, the legs of the animal are located precisely in the counterpost style, forming a visual understanding of the movement.

Incompleteness

This is perhaps one of the Master's favorite "tricks". None of his works are of course. To finish is to kill, and da Vinci loved his every brainchild. Slow and meticulous, a hoaxer of all times could take a couple of brush strokes and go to the valleys of Lombardy to improve the landscapes there, switch to creating another masterpiece or something else. Many works were spoiled by time, fire or water, but each of the creations, at least something meaningful, was and is an "unfinished". By the way, it is interesting that even after the damage, Leonardo da Vinci never corrected his paintings. Having created his own paint, the artist even deliberately left the "unfinished window", believing that life itself will make the necessary adjustments.

What was art before Leonardo da Vinci? Born among the rich, it fully reflected their interests, their worldview, their views on people, on the world. The works of art were based on religious ideas and themes: the affirmation of those views on the world that the church taught, the depiction of scenes from sacred history, instilling in people a sense of reverence, admiration for the "divine" and the consciousness of their own insignificance. The dominant theme also determined the form. Naturally, the depiction of the "saints" was very far from the depictions of real living people, therefore, schemes, artificiality, and static prevailed in art. The people in these paintings were a kind of caricatures of living people, the landscape is fantastic, the colors are pale and inexpressive. True, even before Leonardo, his predecessors, including his teacher Andrea Verrocchio, were no longer satisfied with the template and tried to create new images. They already began to search for new methods of image, began to study the laws of perspective, thought a lot about the problems of achieving expressiveness of the image.

However, these searches for the new did not give great results, primarily because these artists did not have a sufficiently clear idea of the essence and tasks of art and knowledge of the laws of painting. That is why they fell now again into schematism, now into naturalism, which is just as dangerous for true art, copying individual phenomena of reality. The significance of the revolution made by Leonardo da Vinci in art, and in particular in painting, is determined primarily by the fact that he was the first who clearly, clearly and definitely established the essence and tasks of art. Art should be deeply vital, realistic. It must come from a deep, thorough study of reality, nature. It must be deeply truthful, must depict reality as it is, without any far-fetched or falsehood. Reality, nature is beautiful in itself and does not need any embellishment. The artist must carefully study nature, but not for blind imitation of it, not for simple copying of it, but in order, having understood the laws of nature, the laws of reality, to create works; strictly complying with these laws. Create new values, values the real world- this is the purpose of art. This explains Leonardo's desire to link art and science. Instead of simple, casual observation, he considered it necessary to study the subject systematically, persistently. It is known that Leonardo never parted with the album and entered into it drawings and sketches.

They say that he loved to walk the streets, squares, markets, noting everything interesting - the postures of people, their faces, their expressions. Leonardo's second requirement for painting is the requirement for the truthfulness of the image, its vitality. The artist should strive for the most accurate reproduction of reality in all its wealth. In the center of the world there is a living, thinking, feeling person. He must be portrayed in all the richness of his feelings, experiences and actions. For this, it was Leonardo who studied human anatomy and physiology, for this, as they say, he gathered peasants he knew in his workshop and, treating them, told them funny stories to see how people laugh, how the same event causes people have different experiences. If before Leonardo there was no real person in painting, now he has become dominant in the art of the Renaissance. Hundreds of Leonardo's drawings give a gigantic gallery of types of people, their faces, parts of their bodies. Man in all the diversity of his feelings and actions is the task of artistic depiction. And this is the strength and charm of Leonardo's painting. Forced by the conditions of the time to paint pictures mainly on religious subjects, because his customers were the church, feudal lords and wealthy merchants, Leonardo imperiously subordinates these traditional subjects to his genius and creates works of universal significance. The Madonnas drawn by Leonardo are primarily an image of one of the deeply human feelings - the feeling of motherhood, the mother's boundless love for the baby, admiration and admiration for him. All his Madonnas are young, blooming, full of life women, all babies in his paintings - healthy, chubby, playful boys, in whom there is not an ounce of "holiness".

His apostles in The Last Supper are living people of different ages, social status, and different characters; in appearance they are Milanese artisans, peasants, and intellectuals. Striving for the truth, the artist must be able to generalize the individual he found, must create the typical. Therefore, even when painting portraits of certain, historically we famous people, as, for example, Mona Lisa Gioconda - the wife of a ruined aristocrat, Florentine merchant Francesco del Gioconda, Leonardo gives in them, along with individual portrait features, typical, common to many people. That is why the portraits written by him survived the people depicted on them for many centuries. Leonardo was the first who not only carefully and carefully studied the laws of painting, but also formulated them. He deeply, like no one before him, studied the laws of perspective, the placement of light and shadow. All this was necessary for him to achieve the highest expressiveness of the picture, in order, as he said, "to be equal to nature." For the first time, it was in the works of Leonardo that the picture as such lost its static character and became a window into the world. When you look at his picture, the feeling of being drawn, enclosed in a frame, is lost and it seems that you are looking through an open window that opens up something new to the viewer, unseen by him. Demanding the expressiveness of the painting, Leonardo resolutely opposed the formal play of colors, against the enthusiasm for form at the expense of content, against what so clearly characterizes decadent art.

For Leonardo, form is only a shell of the idea that the artist must convey to the viewer. Leonardo pays a lot of attention to the problems of painting composition, the problems of placing figures, individual details. Hence the composition, so favorite by him, of placing figures in a triangle - the simplest geometric harmonic figure - a composition that allows the viewer to embrace the whole picture as a whole. Expressiveness, truthfulness, accessibility - these are the laws of the present, truly folk art, formulated by Leonardo da Vinci, the laws that he himself embodied in his works of genius. Already in his first major painting "Madonna with a Flower" Leonardo showed in practice what the principles of art he professed mean. First of all, its composition is striking in this picture, the distribution of all the elements of the picture, which make up a single whole, is surprisingly harmonious. The image of a young mother with a cheerful baby in her arms is deeply realistic. The deep blue of the Italian sky directly felt in the window cut is incredibly skillfully conveyed. Already in this picture, Leonardo demonstrated the principle of his art - realism, the image of a person in the deepest accordance with his true nature, the image of a non-abstract scheme, which was taught and what medieval ascetic art was doing, namely a living, feeling person.

These principles are even more vividly expressed in Leonardo's second large painting "The Adoration of the Magi" in 1481, in which not a religious plot is significant, but a masterful depiction of people, each of whom has his own, individual face, his own pose, expresses his feeling and mood. The truth of life is the law of Leonardo's painting. The most complete disclosure of a person's inner life is its goal. In The Last Supper, the composition is brought to perfection: despite a large number of figures - 13, their placement is strictly calculated so that all of them as a whole represent a kind of unity, full of great inner content. The picture is very dynamic: some terrible news communicated by Jesus struck his disciples, each of them reacts to it in his own way, hence the huge variety of expressions of inner feelings on the faces of the apostles. Compositional excellence is complemented by an unusually skillful use of colors, the harmony of light and shadow. The expressiveness, expression of the picture reaches its perfection due to the extraordinary variety of not only facial expressions, but the position of each of the twenty-six hands painted in the picture.

This record of Leonardo himself tells us about the careful preliminary work that he carried out before painting the picture. Everything is thought out in it to the smallest detail: poses, facial expressions; even details such as an overturned bowl or knife; all this in its sum makes up a single whole. The richness of colors in this picture is combined with a subtle use of chiaroscuro, which emphasizes the significance of the event depicted in the picture. The subtlety of perspective, the transfer of air, color makes this picture a masterpiece of world art. Leonardo successfully solved many of the problems facing artists at that time, and opened the way for the further development of art. By the power of his genius, Leonardo overcame the medieval traditions weighing on art, broke them and threw them away; he managed to expand the narrow framework with which the then ruling clique of churchmen limited the artist's creative power, and to show, instead of the hackneyed gospel stencil scene, a huge, purely human drama, to show living people with their passions, feelings, experiences. And in this picture again manifested the great, life-affirming optimism of the artist and thinker Leonardo.

Over the years of his wanderings, Leonardo painted many more paintings that received well-deserved world fame and recognition. In "La Gioconda" the image is deeply vital and typical. It is this deep vitality, unusually relief of facial features, individual details, costume, combined with a masterfully painted landscape that gives this picture a special expressiveness. Everything in her - from the mysterious half-smile playing on her face to the calmly folded hands - speaks of the great inner content, the great spiritual life of this woman. Leonardo's desire to convey the inner world in the external manifestations of mental movements is expressed here especially fully. An interesting painting by Leonardo "The Battle of Anghiari", depicting the battle of cavalry and infantry. As in his other paintings, Leonardo strove here to show a variety of faces, figures and poses. Dozens of people depicted by the artist create an integral impression of the picture precisely because they are all subordinated to a single idea underlying it. It was an aspiration to show the rise of all the forces of a person in battle, the tension of all his feelings, gathered together to achieve victory.

Leonardo da Vinci [The true story of a genius] Alferova Marianna Vladimirovna

A statue called "Horse"

Lodovico Sforza, nicknamed Moro, who ruled Milan on behalf of his nephew, found a use for the genius Leonardo - he appointed the artist to prepare the festivities for which the Milan court was so famous. Such holidays were to be spoken about throughout Italy. And they talked about them - many years later, as the music faded and the Sforza dynasty fell. Did Lodovico appreciate the talents of a genius that happened to be at his court by chance? Surely he appreciated it - in his own way, but he could hardly understand exactly who the man was, whose talent he wasted on the momentary whims of court ladies and gentlemen.

However, Lodovico entrusted the Master with serious work: simultaneously with the organization of the holidays, receiving a very modest fee, Leonardo began to design a statue of the Condottiere Francesco Sforza, the founder of the dynasty and father of Lodovico. She was bound to outshine all equestrian statues known at that time. In general, equestrian statues were a great rarity at that time, they could be counted on one hand. The most famous was the antique equestrian statue of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. Almost all Roman and Greek statues depicting generals and emperors on horseback (and there were quite a few of them at one time) were destroyed after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Only the bronze emperor Mark survived - thanks to the fact that some shrewd admirer of him put a cross in the raised hand of the bronze emperor-philosopher. Therefore, the Christians, who usually smashed marble statues, and certainly disfigured them by beating off their noses, and sent the bronze ones to be melted down, spared Mark, deciding that they were facing the first Christian emperor Constantine.

The antique equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius is slightly larger than life size, the horse stands with one leg raised.

Leonardo did not see her when he was working on his "Horse", but he probably heard about her and, perhaps, saw the drawings of his teacher Verrocchio, who was in Rome and was inspired by the statue of Mark in his work. Another famous equestrian statue - the first since Roman times made in a realistic manner - is the image of the Condottiere Erasmo da Nari, nicknamed Gattamelata, cast by Donatello in 1444 and installed in Padua. But Leonardo could not see her either, since he had not yet been to Padua. But the Master was well acquainted with the work of his teacher Verrocchio - the statue of the Condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni, but only in the model. It is possible that he even participated in the creation of sketches for this project.

During the work on the equestrian statue, the sculptor faced enormous difficulties - firstly, it was necessary to resolve the issue of weight distribution - that is, to create a sculpture that would rely only on small horse hooves, and not resort to ugly supports in the center of the abdomen. Considering that bronze is a heavy material - its density is from 7800 to 8700 kilograms per cubic meter, that is, the density of bronze is about 8 times the density of an animal or a person - to make a large bronze statue of a horse so that it does not collapse under its own weight is very difficult simply. The second problem is no less complicated - it is the problem of the casting itself - a large mass of metal, if poured gradually, will cool unevenly, which means that cracks will form in the statue.

Leonardo conceived his "Horse" (and without a rider) more than seven meters high - no one before him had done anything like that. At the same time, at first - judging by the surviving sketches - he wanted to depict the horse rearing up. An incredible task for such a huge statue. Leonardo tried to create a third fulcrum by placing a defeated warrior under one of the horse's legs, but even such a solution could not guarantee a normal distribution of weight between the supports. At the time of Leonardo, there was not a single equestrian statue where the horse was depicted rearing up, without supports under the belly of the animal.

And yet Leonardo performed calculations for the reared horse in order to solve the question of weight distribution. As it turned out already today, his calculations were correct, and the Master could have made what he had conceived, as another Florentine sculptor Pietro Tacca did in 1640, performing a bronze statue of the Spanish king Philip IV. True, this time the calculations were no longer done by the sculptor himself, but by Galileo Galilei. All of you probably know another bronze statue - the monument to Peter I in St. Petersburg by Etienne Falcone, known as the Bronze Horseman. This statue rests on three points of support (hind legs and additionally a snake, which is touched by the horse's tail). Height Bronze Horseman- 5 meters 18 centimeters. At the same time, for a long time I could not find a master for casting - since the thickness of the walls of the statue in the upper part and in the lower one should have been very different, no one undertook to perform such a complex work. As a result, an accident occurred for the first time during the casting work, and only on the second attempt the statue was cast.

At one time, solving the problem of simultaneous pouring of metal, Leonardo developed a system of multiple furnaces (his drawing with a diagram has been preserved).

But Leonardo abandoned the rearing horse. Perhaps Lodovico Sforza simply did not believe that the Master would cope with such a difficult task, since in 1489 Lodovico turned to Lorenzo Medici with a demand to send him another sculptor. The threat of losing the order forced the Master to reconsider his project, and Leonardo at the end of April next year actually begins anew work on the statue. He abandons ambitious attempts to create something impossible and opts for a more traditional composition - this time the horse simply walks with one front leg raised. The Madrid Codex preserved small drawing, next to which Leonardo recorded all the stages of metal pouring. So now we know roughly what this sculpture might look like.

Making sketches for the statue, the Master spent many days in the stable of Lodovico Sforza and other nobles, sketching horses and measuring their proportions. He made many drawings (now they are combined in the Codex Windsor, which is kept in the UK). It took four years for these preparatory drawings! Then Leonardo started making the model out of clay. It was installed in front of the Sforza Palace just before the marriage of Lodovico Bianca's niece Maria to the Emperor Maximilian. The model represented one horse, without a rider.

Viewers who saw Leonardo's model were amazed. The clay horse amazed with perfection, expression, thoroughness of elaboration of details, inner strength, which Leonardo knew how to convey like no other. Kenneth Clarke believes that Albert Dürer's 1513 engraving "Knight, Death and the Devil" was inspired by one of Leonardo's now lost sketches.

"In the powerful run of a heavy-breathing horse," wrote Paolo Giovio, "both the greatest skill of the sculptor and his highest knowledge of nature were manifested."

The fame of the Master spread throughout Italy. At forty-one, Leonardo finally became famous. And the glory was brought to him by the clay model of the statue, which will never be cast in metal.

Leonardo da Vinci. Sketches for a statue of a horse. Silver pencil, blue paper

To cast the sculpture, it was necessary to collect 90 (according to other calculations - 70) tons of bronze. Leonardo considered the option from lithium to the statue in parts, having come up with a special steel frame for the horse, which was supposed to strengthen the sculpture from the inside. However, then the Master made new calculations and decided to cast the entire statue - pouring molten metal from three furnaces. In Milan, they began to collect bronze for a grandiose project. Got almost 60 tons. According to the surviving records, the casting of the statue was scheduled for December 20, 1493. But for some reason it was canceled. A year later, the Duke of Ferrara, Lodovico's father-in-law, as payment of a debt, demanded bronze for himself for casting cannons - and the metal was sent to Ferrara.

While the Italians were at war with each other, dreaming at their leisure of the unification of the country, France, which had a serious military potential, decided to take over the Italian cities. Unfortunately, Lodovico Sforza himself took part in this by inviting the French to seize Naples. However, wealthy Milan (whose income, as already mentioned, accounted for half of France's income) was much closer, and to the French it seemed much more tempting prey.

Albrecht Durer. Knight, death and devil. Engraving. 1513 year

So, terrible times came for Milan - the French king Charles VIII crossed the Alps at the head of an army and invaded Italy. And although four years later the French king died in an accident, his heir Louis XII did not abandon the thought of seizing the rich Italian principality and immediately declared himself Duke of Milan. A year later, Louis XII made a treaty with Venice and invaded Lombardy to capture Milan. At the same time, the Venetians attacked the possessions of the Sforza from the east. Lodovico fled Milan with his family. As a result, in September 1499, Milan was surrendered without a single shot being fired. In October, the French king entered Milan. The invasion of the French turned out to be fatal for the "Horse" model. Gascon crossbowmen, having sorted out Italian wine, decided to use the statue as a target and began to practice accuracy. The clay model was damaged but not destroyed. But water got inside through the holes, then frosts hit, and the statue eventually crumbled. Leonardo no longer saw this - he left Milan shortly after its capture by the French.

As for Lodovico Sforza, after an unsuccessful attempt to regain the duchy, he was captured, sent to France and ended his days in captivity.

However, Leonardo's "Horse" was still cast in bronze - five centuries later.

American millionaire Charles Dent decided to reproduce the life-size statue and donate it to Milan. The project required, according to his estimates, $ 2.5 million. Dent created the Leonardo Horse Foundation, and in 1990 about thirty specialists began work on the project, including sculptor Nina Akamu and bronze casting specialists. The difficulty was that some of Leonardo's drawings were only a few centimeters in size, and the statue, as we remember, had to be more than seven meters high. Dent died in 1994, leaving his art collection to the Foundation. However, his money was not enough.

But then Frederick Mayer, the owner of a supermarket chain, got involved. He wanted to have Leonardo's horse in his garden, which he decorated with copies of famous sculptures. But, until there is at least one horse, there is no copy either. Eventually bronze horse 7.32 meters high was made and installed in front of the San Siro racetrack in Milan in September 1999. Modern sculptors needed 18 tons of bronze for this casting - after all, technologies are moving forward in terms of metal savings.

Modern reconstruction of the Horse statue based on drawings by Leonardo da Vinci

A copy of the "Horse" was installed in a sculpture park in Michigan at the expense of Mayer (this "Horse" does not have a pedestal and stands right on the site, as if walking on the ground).

Now there are five reconstructed horses of Leonardo. Another copy (smaller, already 3.7 meters high) appeared in front of the Allentown School of Art in honor of Charles Dent, and a 2.4 meter high copy was made for hometown Leonardo - Vinci.

And finally, the fifth horse, 7.3 meters high, was created in Italy, but not from bronze. The steel frame with fiberglass was covered with fiberglass to give the model a bronze look. This fifth horse is collapsible. He can be transported from place to place, he takes part in various exhibitions dedicated to Leonardo.

So Sforza eventually got his "Horse". The only question is how identical it is to what Leonardo designed.

In my opinion, the modern "Horse" lacks the grace and subtleties of elaboration of details characteristic of the Renaissance and the works of Leonardo, but the general outline of the work corresponds to the found drawings. Yes, and the horse got a fierce grinning face clearly from the Master's drawing, in which a man, a horse and a lion are baring their teeth at each other.

Looking at this gigantic horse, you understand that the rider is, in principle, superfluous, it is not for nothing that Leonardo, carried away by the project, somehow "forgot" that the bronze Francesco Sforza should have sat on the back of his beautiful "Horse", and as a result made a clay model without rider. Indeed - is anyone allowed to sit on the back of this giant?

I wonder if Lodovico Sforza saw a seven-meter statue in front of the San Siro race track, would he regret sending all the bronze for the cannons to Ferrara and not letting Leonardo create his miracle?

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