Leonardo Da Vinci: The Archetype of the Renaissance Man

Still unfolding many controversies and stories that surround him, humankind seems to be in awe of Leonardo Da Vinci even centuries after his demise. A master across many fields like painting, sculpting, architecture, and science obviously, he epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal laying emphasis on the search of knowledge. He is often described as the man with intellect who awoke generations ahead of his time. Da Vinci’s contribution to art was not voluminous (only seventeen paintings which can be attributed to him have survived and several of them are unfinished), but very much significant. His Mona Lisa and The Last Supper remain among the most widely known works of art even today.

Da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, in Republic of Florence and lived with his father. He received a basic elementary education and benefitting from his father's reputation, he acquired a multifarious training in sculpting, painting and technical-mechanical arts. Apart from this, he was a self-taught man and pursued anything that interested him ranging from applied mathematics to the study of human anatomy all by himself and with much diligence. Though at the age of twenty he was accepted into the painters’ guild of Florence he remained an apprentice for five more years and became an independent master in 1478. Leonardo worked on his terms and over the course of his career went from being the painter and engineer in the service of the Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan to the first painter, architect and engineer to King Francis I of France.

In the wake of Renaissance humanism time era the focus was slowly drifting from God to the powers and wisdom he had endowed onto humans. Da Vinci dedicated his life to this shift. Knowledge fascinated him and he pursued it with the objectivity of science. He immersed himself in the study of nature, observing and dissecting scientific laws, mechanics and human anatomy. Although he filled notebooks with his observations and neat diagrams, much of his genius could not be recognized for a long time because it was written in the left-handed “mirror script” and appeared as gibberish to others.

He died on May 2, 1519, at Cloux, Amboise, France. Da Vinci played many roles in his lifetime and for each role that he took, he has only been endowed with praise--which often falls short of his brilliance.

May it be his exquisite gift of expression in painting, conveying an underlying sense of emotion by moving beyond the narrative, or the comprehensiveness of his architectural studies which took the minutest details into consideration and offered an insight into the architectural achievements of his time, his grandeur remains unmatched across history.