Leonardo Da Vinci - a Worshipper of Nature's Divine Order Essay

da Vinci Da Vinci - a Worshipper of Natures Divine Order - Essay ExampleLeonardos name was actually Leonardo di Ser Piero da Vinci, though he was known throughout his life as Leonardo or Leonardo Ser Piero. Da Vinci is simply a reference to the Tuscan colony in which he was born. Referring to him as Da Vinci is a little like referring to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery of Alamein as Of Alameinor Joan of Arc as Of Arc. It is strange that Brown calls him Da Vinci consistently, despite the fact he apparently studied art in Seville and his wife is supposedly an art historian.The life and work of Leonardo, the archetypical Renaissance Man for whom no branch of knowledge was allowed to remain a closed book, has proved endlessly fascinating to later generations. At one time he was known only as a painter, although many of his works by other hands were unknown and a number of inferior works by other hands were wrongly attributed to him. The full, amaze extent of his genius emerged only in quite recent times with the rediscovery of his notebooks and drawings. For a time, even Leonardo the painter seemed to be submerged by the tilt of his new reputation as a scientist. Some readjustment has taken place since then. As a scientist and engineer, Leonardos achievements, though staggering enough, have proved to be a shade less novel than once we thought, while at the same time a succession of brilliant art historians, beginning with Bernhard Berenson and Kenneth Clark, has do us far more knowledgeable about his art. Though Leonardo would have jibbed at such a judgment, he was and is, first and fore or so a great painter a man whose output was tiny compared with other geniuses of his time (a Michelangelo, a Raphael, a Titian) yet included possibly the two most famous paintings in history, the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper.