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 :. | Small devotional picture by Verrocchio | Study fur the communion | Studies fur the adoration of the Konige | Mona Lisa (detail) dhu | The Virgin and Child with St Anne ey |
Related Artists:
th. hildebrandt
Ferdinand Theodor Hildebrandt, född 2 juli 1804 i Stettin, död 29 september 1874 i Dusseldorf, var en tysk målare. Hildebrandt började sina konstnärliga studier i Berlin under Wilhelm Schadow, vilken han 1826 följde till Dusseldorf, och blev en av den där grundade skolans mest framstående lärjungar. 1825 framträdde han med Faust, 1826 med Cordelia och kung Lear och 1828 med Tankred döpande Klorinda. Ännu större popularitet vann han 1835 för Mordet på kung Edvards söner. Bland hans genrebilder har i synnerhet Krigaren och hans son (1832, Berlins nationalgalleri) blivit känd. Hildebrandt, som för övrigt utförde illustrationer och porträtt, kallades på sin tid realist, men han var knappast fri från den melodramatiska ton och den sentimentala inställning, som tillhörde skolan.
Francois-Rene Moreaux
painted Announcement of Independence in 1844
anna maria thelott
Anna Maria Thelott, född 1683, död 1710, var en svensk konstnär. Thelott var en av de första självförsörjande och professionella kvinnliga konstnärerna i Skandinavien. Anna Maria Thelott var dotter till instrumentmakaren och konstnären Philip Jacob Thelott d.ä., som ursprungligen kom från Schweiz, och syster till konstnären Philip Jacob Thelott d.y. Hon arbetade redan som barn sin med far och sina bröder i arbetet med att illustrera Olof Rudbeck d.ä.:s "Campus Elysii" och "Atlantica", och bidrog snart till hushållets försörjning genom att ensam utföra olika konstnärliga arbeten mot betalning, vilket gjorde henne till landets troligen första kvinnliga yrkeskonstnär. Familjen bodde ursprungligen i Uppsala, men flyttade år 1702 till Stockholm efter den stora stadsbranden då en stor del av Uppsala brann ned. Thelott var en mångsidig konstnär som var kunnig på en rad områden; hon utförde träsnitt och kopparstick förutom teckning och illustrationer med allegoriska och religiösa motiv, miniatyrer och bilder av djur och landskapsmålningar. Hon utförde elva träsnitt av tyska städer med tillhörande informativ text på uppdrag av Posttidningen år 1706 och anlitades för att illustrera Peringskiölds arbeten. År 1710 dog Anna Maria Thelott i Stockholm som en av många offer för den sista pesten i Sverige. På Uppsala universitetsbibliotek finns en skissbok av henne utförd 1704-1709.