Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) on yksi historiamme suurimmista neroista. Hänen työnsä niin taidemaalarina, arkkitehtinä, keksijänä kuin filosofinakin ovat vaikuttaneet yhteiskuntaamme ja käsityksiimme voimakkaasti. Da Vinci jätti jälkeensä Euroopan renessanssiajan tai ehkä jopa kaikkien aikojen merkillisimmän kirjallisen perinnön, joka on sekä laaja - tuhansia arkkeja muistiinpanoja, kirjoitelmia ja piirroksia - että häkellyttävän laaja-alainen. Vasenkätinen da Vinci kirjoitti muistiinpanonsa lähes aina nurinpäin oikealta vasemmalle niin, ettei kirjoitusta voinut lukea kuin peilin avulla tai katsomalla paperiarkkia valoa vasten. Katkelmalliset muistiinpanot kattavat aiheita anatomiasta leikkimielisiin ennustuksiin ja eläinaiheisista allegorioista taiteen teoriaan ja tähtitieteeseen. Leonardo da Vincin työpäiväkirjojen suomennoskokoelma on suurteos, jonka kautta pääsee tutkimaan renessanssineron ajatuksia, luonnoksia ja ideoita. Kirja on sekä lumoava kurkistus Leonardon maailmaan että kattava lähdemateriaali viitteineen ja hakemistoineen. Kirja sisältää kuvitusta alkuperäisistä työpäiväkirjoista. Suomentaja Laura Lahdensuu on laatinut kirjan esipuheen, joka selvittää kiehtovasti Leonardon elämää sekä työpäiväkirjojen syntyä, sen vaiheita ja säilymistä tämän päivän ihmisille.

'Study me reader, if you find delight in me... Come, O men, to see the miracles that such studies will disclose in nature.' Most of what we know about Leonardo da Vinci, we know because of his notebooks. Some 6,000 sheets of notes and drawings survive, which represent perhaps one-fifth of what he actually produced. In them he recorded everything that interested him in the world around him, and his study of how things work. With an artist's eye and a scientist's curiosity he studied the movement of water and the formation of rocks, the nature of flight and optics, anatomy, architecture, sculpture, and painting. He jotted down fables and letters and developed his belief in the sublime unity of nature and man. Through his notebooks we can get an insight into Leonardo's thoughts, and his approach to work and life. This selection offers a cross-section of his writings, organized around coherent themes. Fully updated, this new edition includes some 70 line drawings and a Preface by Martin Kemp, one of the world's leading authorities on Leonardo. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Leonardo Da Vinci is considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived, responsible for the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, The Madonna of the Carnation and Vitruvian Man. Leonardo was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer, and this captivating book provides the reader with a unique insight into the life and work of one of history's most intriguing figures. All of Leonardo Da Vinci's work is presented in this compact volume – from his paintings and frescos, to detailed reproductions of his remarkable encrypted notebooks. As well as featuring each individual artwork, sections of each are shown in isolation to reveal incredible details – for example, the different levels of perspective between the background sections of the Mona Lisa, and the disembodied hand in The Last Supper. 640 pages of colour artworks and photographs of Da Vinci's original notebooks, accompanied by fascinating biographical and historical details are here.

A dazzling array of invention, insight and observation from perhaps the greatest genius of Western civilisation. Towering across time as the painter of the Mona Lisa, forever famous as a sculptor and an inventor, Leonardo da Vinci was one of the greatest minds of both the Italian Renaissance and Western civilisation. His celebrated notebooks display the astonishing range of his genius. Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and recent in-depth biographies have stimulated renewed interest in Leonardo and his complex and enquiring intelligence. This brand-new selection of sketches, diagrams and writings from the notebooks is a beautiful and varied record of Leonardo's theories and observations, embracing not only art but also architecture, town planning, engineering, naval warfare, music, medicine, mathematics, science and philosophy. Complete with a short biographical essay describing Leonardo's life and achievements, this is the perfect introduction to a mysterious and endlessly fascinating genius.

Compiled many years after his death from numerous original manuscripts, "A Treatise on Painting is the principal repository of Leonardo da Vinci's practical thoughts on the technique of drawing and painting. It begins with precise instructions on drawing the human body and then moves on to techniques of rendering motion. Other topics covered are perspective, composition, the expression of various emotions, creating effects of light and shadow, and color. With 48 anatomical drawings by the French classicist master Nicholas Poussin and geometrical and architectural designs by the great Renaissance architect Leon Battista Alberti, this famous book remains one of the most useful and valuable art instruction books of all time. Unabridged republication of the John Francis Rigaud translation, as published by George Bell and Sons, London, 1877.

Although Leonardo da Vinci was one of the greatest artists who ever lived, his career was marked by an unusually large number of uncompleted projects and by finished works that rapidly deteriorated. Nevertheless, his influence is undoubted, and his claim to greatness rests chiefly on his drawings, which have been carefully preserved in such locations as Windsor Castle, the Louvre, the Uffizi Gallery, and the British Museum. This collection, excellently reproduced in black-and-white, is representative of Leonardo's various achievements in many drawing media. Among the selections are drawings of plants, landscapes, animals, battles, weapons, and the human face and figure, as well as studies for later paintings or sculpture: a full compositional study for The Adoration of the Magi, a study for the angel's head in The Virgin of the Rocks, studies of horses for the Sforza monument, studies for The Last Supper, studies for The Battle of Anghiari, and an early cartoon for The Madonna with St. Anne.

More than fifteen hundred extracts containing the Renaissance genius' maxims, prophecies, fables, letters, and brilliant observations in architecture, painting, physiology, geography, and other fields