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A work related analysis of Leonardo da Vinci

Submitted by
Khaula Tariq

Submitted to
Abdullah Deewan
 Introduction
Known for his art work such as paintings, music and sculpture; Leonardo Da Vinci is also

famous for his work in architecture, inventions and scientific contributions. He possessed true

genius which rare people seldom exude. Many technological advancements of the 16 th century

are due to his research and development whereas many more were not put into plan. Had his

inventions or designs been used in the 16 th century it could have been a turning point in the last

century. Most of his work inspires the desire to progress in people be it paintings, music or

innovations in technology. One can almost say that art was a requirement for Da Vinci to convey

his ingenuity. Interestingly enough most of Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous works were neither

signed nor dated and many art works such as the Mona Lisa had hidden clues such as the

repetition of the number three in his painting “The Last Supper”.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s paintings stood out from contemporaries of his time as they affected the

viewers due to his scientific approach. He was one of the few artists who could display depth

and three-dimensionality in a two-dimensional frame; the concept is also referred to as

“vanishing point”. A great illustration of this technique can be found in one of his most famous

paintings, ‘The Last Supper’. The room in which Jesus and his disciples are sitting appears

symmetrical and realistic, a perfect representation of three-dimensional space, whereby the

walls seem to be converging inwards.

Da Vinci created master pieces that could be interpreted according to perspective such as his

“Mona Lisa” where her eyes seem to be following the viewer or her mysterious smile that truly

makes one think. He was gifted in a way that he was able to capture people in a realistic and

emotional way.

One thing that made Da Vinci unique as an artist was his interest in the sciences, particularly

anatomy. He studied corpses at a time when that was very taboo in order to help him

understand how the body worked; it helped him greatly in painting the human form. The

“Vitruvian Man” where an artist’s sensitivity collaborated with a scientist’s desire for

knowledge portrays the anatomy of the human body in two positions. This illustration brings

about human proportion, architecture, human anatomy and symmetry in one distinct and

commanding image. With text and illustration he managed to provoke thought that could not be

depicted by words or pictures alone.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s first and most famous invention was a flying machine called an ornithopter,

combining the Greek words ornithos and pteron. His fascination with flying is very evident in the

fact that he regularly studied birds in flight and would spend a long time trying to understand

flight. Inspirations came from the bat with the design portraying a man flying face down on

wings. Renaissance is the most famous century where the fascination for aviation was most

popular. As with a bird that flaps its wings to give itself lift, da Vinci’s invention was designed to

put the human at the center of the motion, using hand levers, pedals and pulleys to make for a

smooth flight. Knowing that humans were too heavy to fly by flapping winged arms and did not

possess that much strength, he intended to put the aviator on a plank from which he could control

the craft. However this invention was never built.

Leonardo da Vinci invented the ball bearing between the years 1498-1500. He designed it to

lower the friction between two plates that would be in contact in his other famous design known

as the “Aerial Screw” or an early design for helicopter. It was a revolutionary idea for the 15 th

century.

Leonardo was just as interested in getting a man into the sky as he was in the descent of one from

the heavens whereby he designed a pyramid-shaped cloth clad framework allowing a man to

jump from great height and descend without suffering any injury.

Wanting to master land, air and sea Da Vinci came up with a diving suit. His main aim was to

attack enemy ships from below by cutting holes into their boats but this was another radical idea

for it’s time.

Leonardo's study of human anatomy led to the design of one of the first known humanoid robots in
recorded history. The robot, clad in in German-Italian medieval armor, is believed to have been
made around the year 1495 and presented at a celebration hosted by The Duke of Milan, but was
only rediscovered in the form of sketches in the 1950s.

The robotic knight could stand, sit, raise its visor, open and close its mouth, and independently
manoeuver its arms. The entire robotic system was operated by a series of pulleys, cables, internal
gears and hand cranks.

In 2002, Mark Rosheim, a specialist in robotics, built a working model of da Vinci’s robotic knight. It
was proved to be fully functional, as Leonardo had planned.
 Model of a robot based on drawings by Leonardo da Vinci. (Wikimedia Commons)

Leonardo had no formal education in Latin, mathematics and science and never attended a
university. This meant that many of his inventions were largely ignored by scholars and wealthy
patrons, and his genius remained locked away in mere sketches of a notepad. When his diaries
were discovered, analyses revealed that Leonardo's approach to science was one of intense
observation and detailed recording, his tools of investigation being almost exclusively his eyes. Da
Vinci was a fundamentally different kind of scientist for his time, as he integrated the arts into his
theorizing and hypothesizing, bringing about a unique integrated and holistic approach to science.
Culture is very important when it comes to innovation and ideas. As we see during our day to day
lives and walks of life. That humans can solve problems in their environment. There is a direct
connection between art and innovation,because without being able to use artistic ability such as
writing and other forms of art, how can we begin to express our own ideas into a format that can be
understood by people from all walks of life.. unfortunately some schools, institutions and, parental
figures have given a negative stigma to art programs because, on the basis it does not make
money... At the end of the day innovations and inventions make human activities more efficient,
and efficiency creates more resources which has a higher value that Fiat currency.

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"He used scientific methods of research in order to ascertion Nature's laws and introduce
them in his own work.
" His compositions expressed actions, emotions; faces were moulded by the life within.
Landscapes represented the formation of rocks, the growth of plants, the movement of
water.
"In his time there were no professional scientists working by experiment; and the
observations of natural phenomena as handed down by Aristotle and other ancient
philosophers continued to form the foundation of an authorized creed accepted by the
Schoolmen, who deprecated experimental methods as subversive and 'unlettered'.

Source(s): The World Classics, Selections from the Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci,
530, by Irma A. Richter, the Preface
London , Oxford University Press.
First published in 1952
Machine Gun
This invention came about when he became troubled by the amount of time it
took to reload guns in between shots. So, he took 33 guns, arranged them into
groups of 11 and attached them to a rotating shaft so that one set could be
fired while another was being reloaded. While still not as rapid firing as
today’s machine guns, it certainly seemed like a great idea at the time to assist
soldiers during enemy combat.
Anemometer
Probably inspired by his fascination with all things flying, this wind speed
measuring device is not all his own work but rather a continuation of the
designs made by Leon Batista from 1450. He wanted to make it easier to
measure the speed of wind, and so made an arched frame with a hanging
rectangular piece of wood at its center that hung by a hinge. When the wind
blows, it raises the piece of wood and a series of printed scales make it possible
to measure the force of the wind.
Armored Vehicle
Perhaps the most exciting of his battle-ready inventions is the Armored Tank,
a contraption that he proposed whilst working for Ludovico Sforza, the Duke
of Milan. It had 36-gun holes, a slanting design to deflect enemy fire and
would need 8-men to power it.