Painting
See also: List of works by Leonardo da VinciDespite the recent awareness and admiration of Leonardo as a scientist and inventor, for the better part of four hundred years his fame rested on his achievements as a painter and on a handful of works, either authenticated or attributed to him that have been regarded as among the masterpieces.
These paintings are famous for a variety of qualities which have been much imitated by students and discussed at great length by connoisseurs and critics. Among the qualities that make Leonardo's work unique are the innovative techniques that he used in laying on the paint, his detailed knowledge of anatomy, light, botany and geology, his interest in physiognomy and the way in which humans register emotion in expression and gesture, his innovative use of the human form in figurative composition, and his use of the subtle gradation of tone. All these qualities come together in his most famous painted works, the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper and the Virgin of the Rocks.
Read more about this topic: Leonardo Da Vinci
Famous quotes containing the word painting:
“His work was that curious mixture of bad painting and good intentions that always entitles a man to be called a representative British artist.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Now at least we know everything that painting isn’t.”
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
“One is conscious of no brave and noble earnestness in it, of no generalized passion for intellectual and spiritual adventure, of no organized determination to think things out. What is there is a highly self-conscious and insipid correctness, a bloodless respectability submergence of matter in manner—in brief, what is there is the feeble, uninspiring quality of German painting and English music.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)