Does Date Need to Be on Back Leonardo Art Composition Sculpture Woman Child

The curation of this content is at the discretion of the author, and non necessarily reflective of the views of Encyclopaedia Britannica or its editorial staff. For the nearly authentic and up-to-date information, consult individual encyclopedia entries about the topics.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. Engraving by Cosomo Colombini (d. 1812) after a Leonardo self portrait. Ca. 1500. — © Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com

One of the great Renaissance painters, Leonardo da Vinci continually tested artistic traditions and techniques. He created innovative compositions, investigated beefcake to accurately represent the human torso, considered the man psyche to illustrate graphic symbol, and experimented with methods of representing space and 3-dimensional objects on a ii-dimensional surface. The outcome of his inexhaustible curiosity is many unfinished projects but besides some of the most lifelike, complex, and tender representations of human nature. His experiments influenced the art of his successors and often became the standard of representation in subsequent centuries. At his decease in 1519, Leonardo left many notebooks filled with jottings and sketches but very few finished works. Some of his pieces were completed past assistants, but others were lost, destroyed, or overpainted. Beneath are 10 examples of some of his most well-known surviving works.

Mona Lisa (c. 1503–19)

Leonardo da Vinci: Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa, oil on wood panel by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1503–xix; in the Louvre, Paris.
© Everett-Fine art/Shutterstock.com

The world'due south most famous artwork, the Mona Lisa draws thousands of visitors to the Louvre Museum each 24-hour interval, many of whom are compelled by the sitter's mysterious gaze and enigmatic smile. The seemingly ordinary portrait of a young woman dressed modestly in a sparse veil, somber colors, and no jewelry might too confound its viewers, who may wonder what all the fuss is about. The painting's simplicity belies Leonardo's talent for realism. The subject'due south softly modeled face up shows his skillful handling of sfumato, an artistic technique that uses subtle gradations of light and shadow, rather than line, to model course. The delicately painted veil, the finely wrought tresses, and the conscientious rendering of folded material reveal Leonardo's tireless patience in recreating his studied observations. Moreover, the sitter'southward perplexing expression just adds to her realism. Her smile might be engaging or it might be mocking—viewers can't quite figure it out because, like a human, she is a circuitous effigy, embodying contrary characteristics simultaneously.
Last Supper (c. 1495–98)

Leonardo da Vinci: Last Supper
Last Supper, wall painting by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1495–98, later on the restoration completed in 1999; in Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan.
Images Group/REX/Shutterstock.com

One of the most famous paintings in the world, the Last Supper was commissioned by Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan and Leonardo's patron during his first stay in that city, for the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Depicting a sequential narrative, Leonardo illustrates several closely connected moments in the Gospels, including Matthew 26:21–28, in which Jesus declares that one of the Apostles volition beguile him and and then institutes the Eucharist. Leonardo, who was intrigued by the manner in which a man's grapheme tin can reveal itself in posture, expression, and gesture, depicted each disciple's unique reaction to the declaration. The Apostles' postures rise, autumn, extend, and intertwine as they appear to whisper, yell, grieve, and argue around Jesus, who sits serenely in the heart. Because of Leonardo's experimental painting technique, in which he used tempera or oil paint on two layers of preparatory ground, the work began to disintegrate soon after he finished it. Viewers, however, tin yet recognize it as a complex written report of varied human emotion, revealed in a deceptively simple composition.
Vitruvian Man (c. 1490)

Leonardo da Vinci: Vitruvian Human
Vitruvian Man, drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1490; in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice.
Creatas/Getty Images

Leonardo'due south pen-and-ink drawing Vitruvian Human being comes from one of the many notebooks that he kept on manus during his mature years. It is accompanied past notes, written in mirror script, on the ideal human proportions that the Roman builder Vitruvius laid out in a book on architecture from the 1st century BCE. The cartoon illustrates Vitruvius'due south theory that the ideal human could fit within a circle and a foursquare, two irreconcilable shapes. Leonardo resolved the concept past cartoon a male figure in two superimposed positions—i with his arms outstretched to fit in a square and another with his legs and artillery spread in a circle. The piece of work shows not only Leonardo's try to understand pregnant texts merely likewise his desire to expand on them. He was not the first to illustrate Vitruvius's concepts, but his drawing later became the about iconic, partly because its combination of mathematics, philosophy, and fine art seemed a fitting symbol of the Renaissance. The drawing is at present housed in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice, where it is not typically on display but kept in a climate-controlled archive.
Self Portrait (c. 1490/1515–16)

Leonardo da Vinci: self-portrait
Self-portrait, drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1490/1515–16; in the Royal Library, Turin, Italy.
Photos.com/Jupiterimages

Long regarded equally a self-portrait, the cherry-red chalk drawing of an old man with long wavy hair and a beard has been reproduced to such an extent that information technology defines how nearly people think of Leonardo'south appearance. Yet some scholars contend that the effigy, with its craggy features, furrowed brow, and downcast eyes, appears much older than the age Leonardo ever reached; Leonardo died at age 67. They propose that the cartoon may be one of his grotesque drawings, sketches he habitually made in his notebooks of people with eccentric features. Whomever the portrait represents, information technology is a departure from Leonardo's often captivating subjects, yet he managed to imbue the figure with the nobility and wisdom of a mature age.
The Virgin of the Rocks (c. 1483–86)

Leonardo da Vinci: The Virgin of the Rocks
The Virgin of the Rocks, oil on panel by Leonardo da Vinci, 1483–86; in the Louvre, Paris.
Giraudon/Fine art Resources, New York

Based on stylistic bear witness, many scholars consider the painting The Virgin of the Rocks in the Louvre the beginning of two paintings that Leonardo fabricated of an apocryphal legend in which the Holy Family meets Saint John the Baptist as they flee to Egypt from Herod's Massacre of the Innocents. Leonardo was involved in years of litigation with the Confraternity of the Immaculate Formulation, which commissioned the piece of work, and the dispute eventually led Leonardo to paint another version of the subject about 1508, which is now housed in the National Gallery of London.

The beginning painting shows the means in which Leonardo ushered in the High Renaissance. Early paintings from this catamenia oftentimes depicted figures in linear arrangements, dissever from one some other, and strong in grade. In The Virgin of the Rocks, however, the figures of the Virgin Mary, the Christ Child, the infant John, and an archangel are arranged in a pyramidal limerick, and they not only convincingly occupy a infinite but interact with 1 some other through gestures and glances. A youthful Mary sits on the ground in a mysterious rocky landscape, not on a throne as and so many early on Renaissance paintings depicted her. Her body has move—it seems to sway every bit she tilts her caput protectively toward the infant John, who kneels in prayer at the left, and she looks as if she nudges him over to the Christ Kid at the right. Jesus, in turn, blesses John as an archangel, seen in a complex pose from the dorsum, points toward John and glances inscrutably outward at the viewer. Leonardo besides notably excluded traditional holy signifiers—halos for Mary and Christ and a staff for John—so that the Holy Family appears less divine and more human.
Caput of a Woman (1500–ten)

Leonardo da Vinci: Head of a Woman
Caput of a Woman (also called La Scapigliata), oil, globe, and white atomic number 82 pigments on poplar wood by Leonardo da Vinci, 1500–10; in the National Gallery, Parma, Italy.
© Alfredo Dagli Orti/REX/Shutterstock.com

Head of a Woman, a pocket-sized brush drawing with pigment, depicts a young woman with her head tilted and her eyes downcast. Her posture recalls the Virgin Mary in Leonardo's The Virgin of the Rocks, suggesting that the drawing may have served every bit a model. The drawing'southward nickname, La scapigliata, translates to "disheveled" and refers to the young woman'south wayward strands of hair. The loosely sketched tendrils and shoulders contrast with the highly finished confront, where Leonardo gently modeled the woman'southward fragile features, from her heavy eyelids to her tender lips. Information technology reveals Leonardo's fluid means of working, utilizing both expressive cartoon to create form and controlled layering to provide item.
Lady with an Ermine (c. 1489–91)

Leonardo da Vinci: Lady with an Ermine
Lady with an Ermine, oil on panel by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1489–91; in the National Museum, Kraków, Poland.
© ALIK KEPLICZ/AP/Rex/Shutterstock.com

Many art historians identify the youthful woman in Lady with an Ermine as Cecilia Gallerani, the mistress of Leonardo's patron, Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan. The ermine was often used as an keepsake for the duke. The woman turns her caput to the right, her bright eyes seemingly directed toward something outside the frame. Although the painting has been heavily overpainted, notably the dark groundwork, it nonetheless reveals Leonardo'south knowledge of anatomy and his ability to represent character in posture and expression. He captures the daughter's youth and genial nature in her guileless features, attentive gaze, and tender embrace of the ermine, which sits with its caput artsy regally and alert. Her slender hand reveals the complicated bone structure below the skin, just as the head of the ermine suggests the skull underneath the finely rendered fur.
Salvator Mundi (c. 1500)

Leonardo da Vinci: Salvator Mundi
Salvator Mundi, oil on walnut panel believed to have been painted past Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500.
© Geoff Pugh—King/Shutterstock.com

The head-on portrait of Salvator Mundi (c. 1500; "Savior of the Earth") made headlines in 2017 when it sold for a record-breaking $450.3 one thousand thousand at sale. The high cost was all the more surprising when considering that Salvator Mundi was in poor status, it had a questionable history, and its attribution was a subject of debate among scholars and critics. Many pundits remarked on the poor skill used to represent Jesus' face; the stiff posture, which was and then unlike the Renaissance master'southward characteristic twisting poses; and the unconvincing representation of the glass earth, which, if solid, would have reflected a distorted view of its holder, an optical trick that Leonardo would have known about. Christie'south, the auction house that managed the sale, dismissed the criticisms, noting that any lack of arts and crafts was the upshot of heavy restoration in previous centuries and pointed to the soft modeling of Jesus' correct manus and the finesse of his tight curls, both characteristics that resembled Leonardo's technique. The auction house also asserted that conservators had confirmed that the painting was made of the aforementioned materials that Leonardo would accept used, notably ultramarine, an expensive loftier-quality blue pigment often reserved exclusively for virtuosos. The attribution debate connected well subsequently the sale, but the interest in the piece of work and the large sum paid at sale attested to Leonardo'due south indelible celebrity and to his powerful position in the art history canon five centuries later his death.
Ginevra de' Benci (c. 1474/78)

Leonardo da Vinci: Ginevra de' Benci
Ginevra de' Benci, oil on panel by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1474/78; in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund; accession no. 1967.half dozen.one.a)

Housed in the National Gallery of Fine art in Washington, D.C., the portrait of Ginevra de' Benci is the only painting by Leonardo publicly displayed in the Western Hemisphere. It is one of Leonardo's primeval works, finished when he was in his early on 20s, and shows some of the anarchistic methods he would apply throughout his career. Inspired by his Northern contemporaries, Leonardo bankrupt with tradition past depicting the solemn young woman in a three-quarter pose rather than the customary profile, and thus he may accept been the first Italian artist to paint such a composition. He continued to utilize the 3-quarter view in all of his portraits, including the Mona Lisa, and it quickly became the standard for portraiture, then ubiquitous that viewers accept it for granted today. Leonardo may likewise have used his fingers when the paint was nonetheless tacky to model Ginevra'southward face, as suggested past the fingerprints found in the paint surface.

On the reverse side of the painting, a wreath of laurel and palm encircles a sprig of juniper (ginepro in Italian—a pun on the sitter'south name), and a scroll bearing the Latin phrase "beauty adorns virtue" entwines each of the flora. The truncated appearance of the contrary side suggests that the painting may have been cut at the bottom, possibly because of impairment from water or fire. Some scholars speculate that the portrait on the obverse would have included Ginevra's hands and propose that a silverpoint report of arms and hands housed at Windsor Castle may have served as a preliminary drawing.
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (c. 1503–19)

Leonardo da Vinci: The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne
The Virgin and Kid with Saint Anne, oil on woods panel by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1503–19; in the Louvre, Paris.
Photograph, courtesy of Giraudon—Art Resource, New York

Some scholars believe that The Virgin and Kid with Saint Anne was Leonardo's last painting, and in this piece of work he used many of the conventions that he had established throughout his career to depict 3 generations of the Holy Family—Saint Anne, her daughter, the Virgin Mary, and the Christ Child. Anne, at the apex of the pyramidal limerick, watches Mary, who sits on her lap, every bit the Virgin tenderly restrains the Christ Child from mounting a lamb. Contrasting with the knowing infant Leonardo depicted in The Virgin of the Rocks, the Christ figure in the The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne appears innocent, demonstrating playful juvenile behavior and showing a trusting expression as he returns his female parent'south gaze. The interactions between the figures feels intimate and reveals Leonardo'due south ability to correspond convincing man relationships.

The painting too shows Leonardo's lifelong interest in believably representing 3-dimensional infinite on a two-dimensional surface. Equally in many of Leonardo's paintings, the figures sit amid a fantastical landscape. Using aeriform perspective, a technique that he wrote about in his Treatise on Painting, Leonardo created the illusion of distance past painting the rocky formations in the groundwork so that they appear blue-gray and less detailed than the landscape of the foreground. He used this technique in many of the landscapes of his earlier works, including the Mona Lisa and The Virgin of the Rocks.