In response to the letter from the His Majesty, the King of France you are
tasked to complete the following: create a portfolio that represents Leonardo Da
Vinci's best work plus a letter of recommendation in which you analyze da Vinci
based on IB learner profile traits.
St. John the Baptist
Saint John the Baptist is Leonardo Da Vinci last painting before he die. It's oil painting on wood.
The size of the painting originally was 22.4 x 22.7 inches. You can find the painting at the Louvre
Museum in Paris. The painting showed us an image of Saint John the Baptist wearing animal
skins. On his left hand, he was holding a reed cross. Using some techniques, the historians
believed that both the animal skins and the reed cross were added later on by another artist.
There is another special thing about this painting. John's right hand was pointing up to heaven.
And later on, many other artists uses this posture to draw religious paintings of their own. In
this painting, Leonardo da Vinci was being really reflective with this work of art. Lord Kenneth
Clark - British art historian - said: "The ‘St John’ is a baffling work, but every inch of it smells of
Leonardo". It's true because Leonardo da Vinci uses many techniques that he used before at his
other older paintings. The cheekbones, size of John's eyes, and especially John's mysterious
smile are all very similar to one of Leonardo's older painting - the Mona Lisa. Another special
thing about this painting is the dark background. The background made John the Baptist looked
really lifelike. It's like the painting is a picture of a sculpture. The painting uses a lot more
shading than color. He painted the colors cleverly so it looks like there were a ray of light is
shining up John the Baptist's face, which in this case, makes the painting looks so real. It's
actually a lack of color in this painting, but that's what actually making it unique and
mysterious.
The Last Supper
The Last Supper is one of Leonardo da Vinci's most famous paintings. This painting was painted
in 1495-98. It was painted on the wall in Convent of Santa Maria Delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. The
painting is really big - 460 x 880 cm. It took Leonardo da Vinci about 3 years to finish this
massive painting. This painting tells us the story about the evening before one of Jesus' disciples
betrayed him. This showed us all the facial expressions of the disciples when Jesus told the
disciples that one of them will betray him. There are 13 disciples in this painting, each one have
a different facial expression. All 12 of the disciples seems so surprised and confused, except for
Judas - the only man with his arm on the table, with his hand holding a bag. This is probably the
worst condition piece of art. Only some parts of the paintings are still recognizable. This is
because Leonardo Da Vinci was being a risk-taker. He tried to use a different material to paint.
Normally, artists would use tempera on wet plaster, but Leonardo da Vinci tried to mix tempera
with oil paints instead. Later on the paints started to fly off the wall. Notice in this picture, Jesus
doesn't have feet while everyone else does. At first Leonardo da Vinci painted Jesus' feet, but
around 1650, someone broke that part of the wall to build up a door. Also, "The Last Supper"
was affected at World War II because the Convent of Santa Maria Delle Grazie was bombed.
This painting is special because everything in the painting seems to bring their focus to the
middle of the room - where Jesus sits alone, deep in thoughts. Leonardo da Vinci uses an
incredible effect on perspective. It makes the painting looks so lifelike. Unlike the other
paintings in the Middle Ages - flat and unrealistic.
The Virgin of The Rock
The Virgin of the Rocks is the oil on panel painting. This painting was painted at 1491 - 1508,
with the size of 189.5 x 120 cm. You can find the original painting at the Louvre Museum in
Paris. This painting is the first painting that Leonardo da Vinci executed in Milan. This painting
showed us the scene of Madonna, Saint John the Baptist, the Christ child and the angle.
Leonardo da Vinci was being really open-minded in this painting. Usually, Madonna will sit
somewhere higher, become the queen. But in this painting, Da Vinci chooses to paint Madonna
sitting on the ground, next to the river. Behind her is the amazing row of mountains represented with different colors. Normally, there should be halos. But there aren't any halos in
this painting. So this is the first time that an artist has left the halos. Leonardo da Vinci was
being really open-minded when he thought of a way to get us recognize Madonna. The way is
to present it with beauty and grace. In this painting, Madonna's facial expression was really
protective of Saint John the Baptist and Christ child. Saint John the Baptist was putting his hand
together and prays to Christ child. Madonna's arm was around John the Baptist's shoulder.
Again, the perspective of the painting was amazing. The facial expression that we can recognize
from Leonardo da Vinci’s other paintings.
Vitruvian man
Vitruvian Man is probably one of Leonardo da Vinci most famous illustration. This piece of work showed
that Da Vinci was being inquired. He loved the idea of putting human anatomy, architecture, art and
symmetry together. Vitruvian was an ancient Roman architecture. He wrote ten books series about
architecture. In one of his books, he said that the human body is the "model of perfection". He
explained this by drawing a man with his arms and legs fit into a circle and a square. Many other artists
tried to illustrate this. But all leads to failure because the arms were all too long, and the legs were all
too short. Leonardo da Vinci illustrates it in a different way, a better way. He drew a perfect figure of the
man first, and then he tried to fit the square and circle in. The square and the circle tangent only at the
base. The man has probably a bit wavy, curly hair, strong facial expression. The man appears to have 2
different body positions. One with his arms create a straight line, his legs were together. The other one
with his legs and arms a bit up to the side. Leonardo da Vinci drew the figure with ink pen. Around the
figure are words to make it clear since the illustration cannot be with only picture or word.
Human Fetus
Leonardo started to study the phenomenon of reproduction because he was investigating with
human body. The original drawing can be found at Windors Castle near London. I choose this
work because Leonardo da Vinci was being quite curious with the human body. Not just with
male but also with female. The figure showed the shape of the embryonic membranes and the
uterus opened up so we can see what's inside. Surrounding the figures are paragraphs written
in mirror letter (letter writing backward). People think that it's because he was trying to prevent
people from reading his notes and stealing his ideas. Some people also think that he was hiding
his ideas from the Catholic Church since sometimes they disagree with what Leonardo was
trying to find out. Or Leonardo da Vinci was just trying to prevent the ink from smudging.
The foot and lower leg
This work showed Leonardo da Vinci studying of the lower leg and foot. The original drawing
can be found at Windors Castle near London. I choose this piece of work because Leonardo da
Vinci was being really creative in drawing it. He already drew many copies when he dissected
the human body in the hospital, but he made a different version. This version is on an unusual
larger sheet of paper. This allowed him to draw and show all the bones, how they're arranged,
the muscles and the tendons in the lower leg and foot. Again, surrounding the figure are words,
explaining the figure. Looking at it, there is a paragraph which was written on top of the figure.
But I'm not sure about the reason why. Maybe he was trying to explain a part near by or he just
simply put of space to write his ideas.
Screw-cutting machine
Leonardo da Vinci invented a screw-cutting machine. In inventions like this, the drawing took the most
amount of space. Unlike science, Leonardo da Vinci barely wrote anything in his invention sheet of
paper. He designed this at about 1500. He included continuous rotation of the lathe. Instead of having it
rotate back and forth, Leonardo da Vinci designed it so it can only rotate in one direction. There are also
flywheel between the bearings ensures to create more power. This machine has a set of gears for
cutting out the threads of different sizes. He also added lead-screws on the sides. Nobody knows if
Leonardo ever built this machine, but the machine design itself is amazingly real. I choose this piece of
work because it shows that Leonardo da Vinci was being balanced between art and science. He drew an
incredibly realistic machine, with perspective, shading and the right proportion.
Submarine
The first sketches of a submarine were created by Leonardo da Vinci. The drawings of the
submarine were in cone shape. It's basically an empty shell. By reading the notes and sketches
of Leonardo's submarine, scientists discovered that there would not be enough mechanics for
this submarine to submerge under water successfully. This ship's name wasn't a submarine, it
was called "a ship to sink another ship". But later on, Leonardo da Vinci destroyed his invention.
This is because he was being a thinker. He thought of the effect of his invention. Even though
he wanted badly the prestige, the money that he will get for bringing this machine to the word,
but it can destroy his own country. People would use this machine to fight against the other
cities of Italy and the world. That's the reason why he destroy the machine, keep it a secret so
the war wouldn’t be more violent than it was.
The Revolving Bridge
Leonardo da Vinci designed this Revolving Bridge for Duke Sforza. I choose this piece of work
because Leonardo da Vinci was knowledgeable about this invention. He has designed several
other bridges for Duke. He came up with many ideas for developing bridges to use for both
military and economical. The revolving bridge is one of his famous innovative drawings. The
bridge can swing across and set down ready at the other side so that the soldiers could pass
without much trouble. The bridge also have counterweight tank so it can balance well. He
described the bridge as a "light yet rugged".