by Shana Priwer
Leonardo was a hands-on teacher and also collaborated on a number of works with his students during this period, some of which still have questionable attributions. Several of his students' works have even been incorrectly attributed to Leonardo himself. This collaborative style makes it hard to place blame for mistakes, and also makes it hard to give credit where credit is due.
Da Vinci's pupils during this Milan period included Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio (his earliest pupil); Bernardino de'Conti; Giacomo Caprotti (nicknamed Salai); Giovanni Agostino da Lodi; Andrea Solario; Ambrogio de Predis; Francesco Napoletano; and Marco d'Oggiono. While Leonardo was in Milan in the early 1500s, Bernadino de'Conti and Salai continued as his apprentices. He also had a new crop of assistants, including Bernardino Luini, Cesare de Sesto, Giampetrino, and Francesco Melzi. (Melzi later became his personal companion, artistic heir, and likely lover.) Some of these pupils eventually succeeded in their own right, painting famous works such as La Belle Ferronniere, Lucrezia Crivelli, and the Madonna Litta.
Leonardo reportedly chose some of his assistants for their good looks rather than their artistic abilities (Francesco Melzi and Salai in particular). Melzi, unlike Salai, did produce a few paintings during his many years with Leonardo, so we know that the relationship was at least slightly more than personal!
The commission to paint The Virgin of the Rocks, one of the master's early major works, was actually given to both Leonardo and his assistant, Ambrogio de Predis, in 1483. Ambrogio served as a court painter to Ludovico Sforza and hosted Leonardo in his home when Leonardo first came to Milan, The two collaborated on paintings throughout the 1490s, and The Virgin of the Rocks is the best known of these collaborations. In this work, Leonardo painted the central picture, while de Predis painted two side panels showing angels playing musical instruments. Two versions were eventually completed, thanks to the resulting lawsuit (see number 36 for the complete story on this work). Although in the later version the angel kneeling behind the infant Jesus is undoubtedly Leonardo's work, he most likely did not finish it. The Madonna and landscape aren't as good technically, suggesting that a student probably painted them.
One of Leonardo's students from Milan, Andrea Solario (1460–1524), made his own style by mixing elements of Leonardo's work with the contemporary Lombard and Venetian schools of painting. His bright colors, fantastical landscapes, and harmonious groupings of figures emulate Leonardo, while some of his naturalistic details echo the Lombard and Flemish traditions. Leonardo probably used another one of his Milan students, Boltraffio, as a test bed for his teaching, and it seems to have paid off. Boltraffio's training is visible in many of his works, including his 1495 painting The Virgin and the Child, which he may have based on Leonardo's sketches.
Later in Leonardo's life, during his final years in Rome (around 1509–1516), he continued to have many students. In fact, Leonardo's students copied his final painting, St. John the Baptist, many times. Since many of Leonardo's original works are now lost, in many cases, only copies done by his pupils allow us to see the true scope of his work. Though Leonardo's students spent much time copying the master's works, few of them ever transcended his direct influence to become well known in their own right. Only two of Leonardo's followers, Bernardino Luini and Sodoma, seem to have developed well-respected careers independent of Leonardo.
Bernardino Luini, a Milanese painter, was born sometime between 1470 and 1480, and lived until 1530. It's assumed that he was Leonardo's student, though there's no actual evidence to support that claim. A number of Luini's works, including Christ Crowned with Thorns and some of his paintings of the Virgin and Child (such as those at Saronno) show a style similar to Leonardo's in terms of color choices, overall design, and the sense of depth given by the paintings' relief elements. In these aspects, Luini came closer to replicating Leonardo's style than any other contemporary artist.
But Luini's style was, in many ways, distinctly his own. For one thing, his works have a sweetness that Leonardo's more ambiguous paintings lack. Also, Luini's works are generally more religious than Leonardo's. Many of Luini's frescos are well known, and while Luini certainly was not a master of many fields as was Leonardo, his works do an admirable job of instilling a sense of religious stillness in observers.
Giovanni Antonio Bazzi (1477–1549) is another artist whom Leonardo influenced significantly, although once again, there is no evidence that he studied directly in Leonardo's studio. Known by his nickname, Sodoma, Bazzi came to Milan in the late 1400s as a glass painter's apprentice. Sodoma was a natural at drawing, but he learned several things from Leonardo, including color selection. His works are often charming and poetic, and the faces of the women and children he created are quite beautiful. However, none of his works have the timeless mystery and appeal of Leonardo's, showing that once again, genius is a hard act to follow!
Part 2
THE BEST OF THE BEST OF THE BEST
Though Leonardo's interests were all over the map, today we primarily know him for his paintings, and for good reason. They demonstrate Leonardo's various technical innovations, including the blending techniques of sfumato and chiaroscuro. Leonardo pioneered the use of realistic perspectives in his paintings, and he brought his scenes to life with fantastical backgrounds. The Mona Lisa is probably his most famous painting today, but some of his lesser-known works were also immensely popular during his lifetime.
So what could he do besides paint, you ask? Plenty—Leonardo was a talented innovator in many other artistic fields. He produced designs for sculptures, including what would have been the largest bronze sculpture ever cast if it had been built. With his background in both art and mathematics, Leonardo was a natural for architecture—he designed a number of churches, palaces, fortresses, and military structures. He also devoted time to a personal project called “Ideal City,” a master plan for city planning meant to provide a hygienic urban design to protect city dwellers from the plagues that decimated populations during Leonardo's lifetime. While none of Leonardo's architectural designs were ever built, other contemporary architects did adopt some of his concepts.
Whether painting his most famous works, like the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, or planning new and innovative city structures, Leonardo's expertise and breadth of knowledge reached far beyond traditional areas of art and architecture.
27
Early sculpture: A celebration in three dimensions
During his apprenticeship to Andrea Verrocchio (1468–1472), Leonardo learned how to paint—but his education didn't stop there. He was exposed to different aspects of arts and craftsmanship, including how to make panels and canvases, castings, and sculptures. Leonardo was a bit biased in that he considered painting to be the true sign of genius in an artist. Leonardo viewed sculpture as being more mechanical, whereas he saw painting as more expressive and creative. Lucky for us he excelled at both.
Leonardo's early experiments with sculpture focused on the human emotions. During this period, he created several busts of women demonstrating various expressions, including smiles and laughter. His interest in mathematics probably enhanced his ability to create geometrically precise sculptures and busts.
Many Renaissance sculptors took inspiration from the classics. Michelangelo and Raphael, for example, studied classical proportions, styles, and technique. You can see classical motifs in much of their work. Leonardo, on the other hand, was more of an individualist. You can see his personal style in all of his work, particularly in his approach to three-dimensional art.
Sculpture, for Leonardo, wasn't just about the final result. He also used sculptures to enhance his paintings. Leonardo made clay studies of things like draperies, which he then used as models for his paintings. He most likely used this technique primarily in his early works, such as the draperies on the angel he painted as part of Verrocchio's Baptism of Christ.
Bust of a Woman with Flowers is supposedly one of Leonardo's first marble sculptures. But did Leonardo really create it? Historians
know that this sculpture was made sometime between 1470 and 1480, placing it squarely within the years that Leonardo worked with Verrocchio. Stylistically, it resembles Leonardo's work more than his master's; while this sculpture was originally credited to Verrocchio, experts now think Leonardo was its primary sculptor.
This particular bust was probably created from a live model, Ginevra de'Benci, also a model for one of Leonardo's early paintings in 1474. De'Benci, who came from an educated family of bankers, was one of the most famous female intellectuals and poets of her day. This work is particularly significant because, unlike classical busts that typically only show the figure's head and shoulders, this one displays the figure's hands and arms as well. Just as Renaissance portrait paintings were starting to show people in three-quarter (rather than frontal) view, sculptures were also beginning to show more and more of the whole person. This transition relates back to the Renaissance focus on humanism. As society began to place more emphasis on the individual and his or her personal dignity, artists such as Leonardo embraced this new social movement by allowing more individual expression in artwork.
28
Form, function, and the whole nine yards
It's difficult to know which works are actually Leonardo's because he belonged to Verrocchio's workshop for years, and then had his own students afterwards. One of the few pieces about which there is no doubt, though, is a bronze statue called Horse and Rider. It dates with relative certainty to Leonardo's late years, 1516–1519. During this period, he made several models of horses for the King of France, François I.
This particular statue, featuring a horse rearing up on its hind legs, looks a lot like other horse-and-rider sculptures Leonardo made earlier in his career. The biggest of them all was the colossal Statue of Francesco Sforza (see number 29), a full-size monument designed in the 1480s, which was never completed in its planned form.
Leonardo was also involved with a horse-and-rider sculpture created for the funeral monument of Gian Giacomo Trivulzio. From the sketches, we can tell that this sculpture would have been quite a spectacle, having a marble base and eight other figures. The horse would have followed the same basic design as the aforementioned Sforza monument, only with a more dynamic posture. There is no evidence, however, that the work was ever completed.
If, at this point, it's beginning to seem as if Leonardo rarely completed any of the sculptures he concocted, this isn't the case. It's nearly certain that Leonardo sculpted other pieces that were indeed finished, such as The Young Christ. Leonardo worked on this terracotta statue between 1470 and 1480, roughly the same period during which historians believe he created Bust of a Woman with Flowers.
In addition to these accomplishments, Leonardo worked on sculptures executed mainly by others in his workshop, such as St. John the Baptist Teaching, a bronze completed in 1511. Giovanni Francesco Rustici, a student originally in the Medici Garden, sculpted this statue in large part. Leonardo and Rustici met in Verrocchio's workshop, and Rustici worked alongside Leonardo for many years afterwards. Rustici could have been famous by way of patronage to popes and kings but, unlike Leonardo, he didn't seem to have much ambition and preferred to be alone. Fortunately, since he came from a wealthy family, he had the luxury of doing as he wished.
In the early 1500s, Rustici was working with a local merchants' guild commissioned to create bronze statues for the church of San Giovanni. The star attraction was to be a sculpture of St. John the Baptist. As the story goes, Rustici refused to work with anyone except Leonardo, and the two artists probably designed and executed the statues together. Leonardo's contributions to the sculpture are evident in several areas, especially in the hand and finger positions of St. John. Similar positioning can be seen in other Da Vinci works, such as his painting St. John the Baptist, created between 1513 and 1516. The finger pointing is nearly identical to that seen in the San Giovanni sculpture. It is also quite similar, in this respect, to another one of Leonardo's probable paintings, St. John in the Wilderness, which dates from 1510 to 1515.
29
A horse is a horse, of course, of course
Whether it's yard gnomes, porcelain Santas, or pink flamingos, most of us appreciate some form of small outdoor sculpture. In 1483, Leonardo set about creating the largest statue the world had ever seen. His personal mammoth was a design for an oversized equestrian Statue of Francesco Sforza, mentioned in the previous point. This grand project was begun in honor of Francesco Sforza, the father of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. At more than twenty-four feet high, the statue would have been enormous.
As explained in number 27, sculpture was never Leonardo's favorite art. But this particular project probably interested Leonardo because of his fascination with nature and animals, especially horses. While this design was a Leonardo original, the notion of capturing a battle scene in sculpture definitely had precedents in Roman and Medieval artwork, and Leonardo probably took cues from the Roman statue of Marcus Aurelius.
While Leonardo had created many sketches and variations of the design by the early 1490s, he still hadn't built an actual statue. At this point, his patrons were getting impatient, so Leonardo had to hurry and create a full-scale clay model. It was quite a hit and was set up in the garden of the Palazzo Vecchio. People traveled from all over to see this enormous masterpiece, affectionately dubbed “Il Colosso.”
The clay model did wonders for Leonardo's reputation. People all over Italy knew him as that crazy artist who'd made the fantastic tribute to the Sforza family. The final bronze statue should have been one of Leonardo da Vinci's crowning achievements. He even had to design special furnaces for the bronze casting, since none of the existing furnaces was even close to being large enough.
Despite the design's immense popularity, it is not certain that this statue ever really could have been built, as there was no precedent at the time for casting a hollow-shell statue (close to two inches thick) on such a large scale. Leonardo and his workshop were in the middle of obtaining bronze (no small task for a statue that would have weighed more than sixty tons) when warfare demands intervened. France was invading Milan, and the bronze Leonardo would have used for the statue was cast into military equipment, such as cannons.
Adding insult to injury, Leonardo's treasured clay model didn't even survive the war. As the French encroached on Milan in 1499, French soldiers set up outposts near the Palazzo Vecchio. The clay horse statue was destroyed when the French used it for target practice! The bits that remained degraded slowly over time, and nothing of the original is left today.
30
Draw up a chair!
Renaissance art paid homage to its Greek and Roman ancestors, but at the same time forged its own path. It wasn't enough to copy the classics; Renaissance artists went one better! Different methods of artistic representation were developed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and Leonardo popularized several of them, establishing gold medal standards that future artists would emulate.
One of the most enduring innovations in Renaissance drawing was the notion of linear perspective. The concept of perspective involves the idea that it's possible to represent a three-dimensional shape (such as an apple or building) on a two-dimensional piece of paper or canvas. Sounds simple, but that's because we take it for granted today. Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) devised a mathematical model for drawing in perspective, where the artist pretended to draw as if through a window. This method made use of a “horizon line,” which represented eye-level, and used “vanishing points” that served as connection points for all lines of sight. These points helped to designate locations for all objects in the scene. Artists drew “visual rays” from vanishing points, and through these rays, they could create objects composed of right angles (such as walls, bricks, or anything else with a sharp edge).
One-point perspective (which, as the name suggests, contains one vanishing point) was useful for scenes that looked down a narrow corridor or alley. Leonardo's The Last Supper is an excellent examp
le of an interior scene that used this type of linear perspective. Two-point perspective was incorporated more often for landscapes and other scenes that contained wide angles of view. Early Renaissance architects such as Brunelleschi and Alberti worked with linear-perspective techniques, and Leonardo was a major proponent of this new drawing method.
In learning how to construct precise, accurate perspective drawings, Leonardo may have worked with a device called a perspectograph. The idea behind it was similar to a mechanic's workbench, only it was for drawing. This system involved a table with a stand that had a cutout, through which the artist could trace perspective lines of objects beyond the stand. While Leonardo didn't invent the idea of drawing in perspective, he used it to such an extent that other artists soon came to admire, and then imitate, his style.
Leonardo was actually increasing his workload by painting more realistically (and more three-dimensionally) than his predecessors. With this new way of drawing, he had to develop new techniques to make the entire painting appear more convincing. No longer would simple, flat colors suffice! Figures seen in the round had to be properly distinguished, both as their own forms and as objects distinct from the scene's background. Thus, historians largely credit Leonardo with developing another critical artistic innovation known as chiaroscuro, which, translated from Italian, means “clear/light and dark.” Leonardo used light and dark colors to portray both shade and shadow more convincingly, as they were actually experienced in real life. This use of the chiaroscuro technique represented the first time a Renaissance painter had contrasted lights and darks to help create a truly three-dimensional image. Chiaroscuro is evident in many of Leonardo's paintings, including the early Benois Madonna of 1478. Leonardo's chiaroscuro technique has become so integral to artistic training that some historians have even called it one of Leonardo's most important artistic contributions.