Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance genius.

He was good at many things, but was most famous as

a painter. He was also a scientist, a mathematician, an engineer, an inventor, an anatomist, a sculptor, an architect, a botanist, a musician and a writer. Leonardo was curious about everything in nature. He wanted to know how everything worked. He was very good at studying, designing and making all sorts of interesting things.

Leonardo da Vinci believed that in order to paint objects or people, an artist had to understand their structure – how they are formed or put together. He was able to study things and understand them clearly. He figured out and drew diagrams to explain how birds fly – several centuries before slow motion cameras showed the same ideas. Da Vinci believed that an artist could show emotions in portraits. He did this with a technique called Sfumato, meaning smoke, in which he painted a colour that turned slowly from light to dark tones to give off a kind of misty glow or smoky mystery. He tried to paint portraits that showed emotions, not just a blank stare.


I think Leonardo da Vinci was the greatest painter to have lived. Not only did he paint super realistic paintings for kings and the rich, he managed to add hidden meanings and secrets in his paintings. For example, the Mona Lisa, meaning “the joking one” and “my lady”, Da Vinci painted her with a very subtle smirk. I think this work is   extremely creative and outstanding for his time. Among the qualities that make Leonardo's work unique are the innovative techniques that he used in laying on the paint, his detailed knowledge of anatomy, light, botany and geology, his interest in the human body and the way in which humans register emotion in expression and gesture, his innovative use of the human form in figurative composition, and his use of the subtle gradation of tone. All these qualities come together to make one of the finest artists to have ever lived.