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 :. | Self Portrait | Waiter flat anatomy of the shoulder | The Last Supper | Study fur the head of a Madchens | The Virgin and Child with St Anne (detail) f |
Related Artists:
Ludovic Bassarab
painted Nomads in 1868-1933
HOUCKGEEST, Gerard
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, ca.1600-1661
j. f. willumsen
(7. september 1863 i København - 4. april 1958 i Cannes) var en af pionererne bag det moderne gennembrud i dansk billedkunst omkring 1900. Han var primært maler, men mestrede de fleste kunstarter og arbejdede desuden som billedhugger, grafiker, keramiker, arkitekt og fotograf. J.F. Willumsen studerede ved Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi fra 1881 til 1885. Efter tre forgæves forsøg på at blive indstillet til afgangsprøven på Kunstakademiet, studerede han på Kunstnernes Frie Studieskoler i København. I 1891 var han med til at stifte Den Frie Udstilling, hvis udstillingsbygning han tegnede i 1898. Willumsen opholdt sig i hovedparten af sit liv uden for Danmarks grænser, hovedsageligt i Frankrig, hvor han under et ophold i Paris 1890-94 blev præget af symbolismen. I de følgende årtier blev han eksponent for flere af epokens kunstretninger og hans stil ændredes i mere ekspressiv retning. Willumsen tilbød en stor del af sine værker og kunstsamling til staten og arbejdede fra 1930'erne på oprettelse af et museum. I 1957, året før hans død, åbnede J.F. Willumsens museum i Frederikssund.