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 :. | Anatomy of the Schadels | Small devotional picture by Verrocchio | Madonna and Child with St Anne and the Young St John | The Virgin and Child with St Anne ey | Madonna with the Yarnwinder ty |
Related Artists:
c. a. dahlstrom
Carl Petter Dahlström, född ca 1705, död 4 mars 1794, var en svensk möbelsnickare. Dahlström gesällvandrade 1745?C1755 i Nordeuropa och Frankrike, där han i Paris kom i lära hos den tidens främste ebenist Jean-François Oeben. Hos denne lärde sig Dahlström faneringstekniken marqueterie ?? fleurs eller blomsterintarsia, som var en metod för att möta rokokons krav på fanering av dubbelvälvda kroppar. Mycket tack vare rekommendationer av C.J. Cronstedt blev Dahlström efter hemkomsten till Sverige utnämnd till kunglig ebenist den 19 november 1756. Han finns representerad på Nationalmuseum med en byrå som han tillverkade tillsammans med Lorentz Nordin. Dahlström överlämnade 1769 sina privilegier till Niclas Palmgren och ägnade sig därefter åt restaurangverksamhet.
RICHTER, Johan
Swedish painter, Venetian school (b. 1665, Tukholma, d. 1745, Venezia).was a Baroque painter, born in Sweden, but painting mainly landscapes or veduta of Venice. Richter was born in Stockholm and died in Venice. He was known to be active in Venice by 1717. He was influenced by Luca Carlevarijs.
Walter Ufer
American Painter, 1876-1936,was an American artist based in Taos, New Mexico. His most notable work focuses on scenes of Native American life, particularly of the Pueblo Indians. Walter was born of German immigrant parents and raised in Kentucky. After an apprenticeship as a lithographer, he went to Europe where he was a traveling journeyman. When he returned to America, he worked as a printer in Chicago and taught school, and later took classes in fine arts. After a brief time in Chicago, he returned to Europe for further study as an artist.