Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, more commonly Leonardo da Vinci or simply Leonardoˈvintʃi] ; 15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519), was an Italian polymath whose areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. He has been variously called the father of paleontology, ichnology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank,...
NationalityItalian
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth15 April 1452
CityVinci, Italy
CountryItaly
The men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use. But the bee...gathers its materials from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own.
Fix your course on a star and you'll navigate any storm.
I have always felt it is my destiny to build a machine that would allow man to fly.
Music... is the shaping of the invisible.
Every obstacle is destroyed through rigor.
Make yourself a master of perspective, then acquire perfect knowledge of the proportions of men and other animals.
Thirst will parch your tongue and your body will waste through lack of sleep ere you can describe in words that which painting instantly sets before the eye.
Envy wounds with false accusations, that is with detraction, a thing which scares virtue.
O painter skilled in anatomy, beware lest the undue prominence of the bones, sinews and muscles cause you to become a wooden painter from the desire to make your nude figures reveal all.
Just as a well-filled day brings blessed sleep, so a well-employed life brings a blessed death.
Never make heads straight on the shoulders, but turn them aside to the right or to the left, even though they look down, or upward, or straight ahead, because it is necessary for them to look lively and awake and not asleep. And do not depict the front or rear half of the whole person so that too much straightness is displaced, one half above or below the other half; and if you should wish to use stiff figures, do so only in portraying old people.
I say that the power of vision extends through the visual rays to the surface of non-transparent bodies, while the power possessed by these bodies extends to the power of vision.
O admirable necessity! O powerful action! What mind can penetrate your nature? What language can express this marvel? None, to be sure. This is where human discourse turns toward the contemplation of the divine.
Darkness is absence of light. Shadow is diminution of light.