Italian High Renaissance Painter and Inventor, 1452-1519 Italian High Renaissance Painter and Inventor, 1452-1519 Florentine Renaissance man, genius, artist in all media, architect, military engineer. Possibly the most brilliantly creative man in European history, he advertised himself, first of all, as a military engineer. In a famous letter dated about 1481 to Ludovico Sforza, of which a copy survives in the Codice Atlantico in Milan, Leonardo asks for employment in that capacity. He had plans for bridges, very light and strong, and plans for destroying those of the enemy. He knew how to cut off water to besieged fortifications, and how to construct bridges, mantlets, scaling ladders, and other instruments. He designed cannon, very convenient and easy of transport, designed to fire small stones, almost in the manner of hail??grape- or case-shot (see ammunition, artillery). He offered cannon of very beautiful and useful shapes, quite different from those in common use and, where it is not possible to employ cannon ?? catapults, mangonels and trabocchi and other engines of wonderful efficacy not in general use. And he said he made armoured cars, safe and unassailable, which will enter the serried ranks of the enemy with their artillery ?? and behind them the infantry will be able to follow quite unharmed, and without any opposition. He also offered to design ships which can resist the fire of all the heaviest cannon, and powder and smoke. The large number of surviving drawings and notes on military art show that Leonardo claims were not without foundation, although most date from after the Sforza letter. Most of the drawings, including giant crossbows (see bows), appear to be improvements on existing machines rather than new inventions. One exception is the drawing of a tank dating from 1485-8 now in the British Museum??a flattened cone, propelled from inside by crankshafts, firing guns. Another design in the British Museum, for a machine with scythes revolving in the horizontal plane, dismembering bodies as it goes, is gruesomely fanciful. Most of the other drawings are in the Codice Atlantico in Milan but some are in the Royal Libraries at Windsor and Turin, in Venice, or the Louvre and the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. Two ingenious machines for continuously firing arrows, machine-gun style, powered by a treadmill are shown in the Codice Atlantico. A number of other sketches of bridges, water pumps, and canals could be for military or civil purposes: dual use technology. Leonardo lived at a time when the first artillery fortifications were appearing and the Codice Atlantico contains sketches of ingenious fortifications combining bastions, round towers, and truncated cones. Models constructed from the drawings and photographed in Calvi works reveal forts which would have looked strikingly modern in the 19th century, and might even feature in science fiction films today. On 18 August 1502 Cesare Borgia appointed Leonardo as his Military Engineer General, although no known building by Leonardo exists. Leonardo was also fascinated by flight. Thirteen pages with drawings for man-powered aeroplanes survive and there is one design for a helicoidal helicopter. Leonardo later realized the inadequacy of the power a man could generate and turned his attention to aerofoils. Had his enormous abilities been concentrated on one thing, he might have invented the modern glider.   Related Paintings of LEONARDO da Vinci :. | Annunciation | A rock gorge | Master of the Pala Sforzesca, profile of an old man | The Last Supper | Self Portrait |
Related Artists:
Francesco Bassano the younger
Bassano 1549-Venice 1592
CAMPEN, Jacob van
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1595-1657 Chief exponent of Classicism in The Netherlands. He studied architecture in Italy and was influenced by the work of Scamozzi and Palladio. With his Coymans House on the Keizersgracht, Amsterdam (1624), he introduced the Palladian style to The Netherlands. His most refined work is the Mauritshuis in The Hague (1633?C5), which has a Palladian plan, elevations featuring a Giant Order of Ionic pilasters set on a plain base, a pedimented central section given little emphasis, and a hipped roof. Much grander is the Town Hall (now Royal Palace), Amsterdam (1648?C55): it has two internal courtyards separated by a huge central hall, façades with two superimposed Giant Orders of pilasters, and a large projecting pedimented central section over which is a domed lantern. His Nieuwe Kerk (New Church), Haarlem (1645?C9), is based on the quincunx plan (essentially a Greek cross within a square), with square Ionic crossing-piers and a groin-vault over the crossing. He was responsible for the Accijnshuis, Amsterdam (1638), the Noordeinde Palace, The Hague (1640), and, with others, the decorations of Post's Huis-den-Bosch, Maarssen, near Utrecht (c.1628).
Thomas Kennington
(7 April 1856 - 10 December 1916) was an English genre, social realist and portrait painter. He was a founder member of the New English Art Club (NEAC) and the Imperial Arts League. Kennington was born in Grimsby in Lincolnshire and trained in art at the Liverpool School of Art (winning a gold medal), the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London, and the Academie Julien in Paris, where he studied under Bougereau and Robert-Fleury. He later moved to Chelsea in London. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, London from 1880 - 1916, and also regularly showed his work at the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) in Suffolk Street and the Grosvenor gallery. He was a founder member and first secretary of the New English Art Club (from 1886), and also founded the Imperial Arts League, whose stated purpose was to "protect and promote the interests of Artists and to inform, advise and assist...."He won a bronze medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1889. cjr