Leonardo Da Vinci

Leaonardo Da Vinci (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/00653/news-graphics-2007-_653325a.jpg)

My hero is Leonardo Da Vinci. Leonardo was born just outside of Vinci on April 15, 1452 to Piero Da Vinci and a peasant women named Caterina. At a young age Leonardo showed a talent for drawing. This got him apprenticeship to Andrea Di Cione Verrocchio, the greatest artist of his time. At about the time when Leonardo was twenty he left Florence to go to Milan after the ruler rejected his art "The Adoration of the Magi". While in Milan Duke Ludovico Sforza kept Leonardo busy sculpting, painting, and making machinery. During these seventeen years serving the Dukie he completed one of his best paintings "The Last Supper". After Milan fell to the French, Leonardo had to go around Italy looking for a patron. This is when he found Cesare Borgia. He would travel around with Borgia's army as a military engineer. At around 1503 he started working on another famous piece of his, "The Mona Lisa." Leonardo then died on May 2, 1519 in Cloux, France, of natural causes.

Leonardo would draw, paint, and sculpt. He would cut open dead corpses of humans and would then draw the anatomy of a human. This made him looked down upon. When he was painting for the Duke he made "The Last Supper". This painting was 15ft x 29ft and covered the black wall at Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. He painted it so it would look like the moment Jesus told his twelve apostles that one of them would betray him.

In 1503 Leonardo Da Vinci was asked by Francesco del Giocondo to make a painting of his wife Lisa del Giocondo. He did so willingly because he thought Lisa's smile was elusive. He worked on this painting for four years but then stopped and left it unfinished. Later on he finished the painting just before his death. He meant for "The Mona Lisa" to go to Francesco del Giocondo's family but it went to his assistant Salai.

Leonardo Da Vinci is important to me because he did not care what others thought of him. He kept on researching about the human anatomy, which may have helped us to this day. He would also draw or sculpt amazing pictures or statues that left people speechless. He changed my life by widening my perspective of art. Also by realizing there are other forms of art, not just drawing. Like how Leonardo said "All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions".