Tell Me About Yourself – A Good Answer to This Nanny Interview Question
A. I was born in a little village outside Florence, in Italy, called Vinci. That is what my name means – Leonardo from Vinci.
If you would like to know more about Leonardo, perhaps you could read about him in a book, or look him up on the internet.
A. No, I was interested in how things worked and so invented many things – bridges, flying machines, parachutes, tanks. Not all of them were made at the time, though.
A. I could read and write, but I learned everything from asking my uncle questions about nature, but mostly by observing the things around me.
A. I loved the countryside and spent my childhood observing the plants and animals I found there. I wanted to understand how they were formed, how they grew. I wanted to understand everthing about the world !
Editor’s note: Leonardo da Vinci [1452-1519] himself never wrote on the subject, but scholars have pieced together the following narrative from accounts by one of his supporters, Niccolò Machiavelli [The Prince], and Giorgio Vasari [The Lives of the Artists] as follows. Above left: the Isleworth Mona Lisa [now called “the Earlier Mona Lisa” Info; right: the Medici Mona Lisa, in the Louvre museum.
At this point, when Leonardo needed every ally in the Florentine government to support his petition to leave for a lucrative commission in Milan, the urgency of the Giocondo portrait commission became clear. Therefore he had to appease his client by completing the painting of Giocondos wife, and so Leonardo presented the earlier version of the Mona Lisa to him in 1506. The Louvre version of the Mona Lisa, according to Giorgio Vasari, remained in Leonardo’s studio, where he worked on it on and off until his death in 1519 [in Amboise, France], and by 1550 it was in the possession of King Francis I, at Fontainebleau. The portrait was finally placed in the Louvre in 1797.
A: At the turn of the 16th Century, it was common practice for great artists of the Renaissance, Leonardo included, to make multiple versions of their paintings. Léon Roger-Milès, in his Leonard de Vinci et les Jocondes (1923), contends that Leonardo painted two Mona Lisas: the first for Francesco del Giocondo, and the second for Giuliano de Medici. Other prominent scholars agree.
A: Leonardo became embroiled in the task of creating the vast Anghiari cartoon, then transferring the design to a wall in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. The project was made virtually impossible by Leonardo’s insistence on using the same type of oil-based glazes with which he had previously revolutionized the art of portraiture, rather than the quick-drying tempera-based pigments commonly used for fresco. The wall refused to absorb the oil-based pigments, and the paint began to drip and run. The mural began to deteriorate almost immediately. By early 1506, Leonardo recognized that the painting that was meant to be the crowning achievement of his career was ruined.
A: Francesco del Giocondo, a silk merchant who by 1503 held prominent positions in Florence’s republican government, was a man who could very well bring his influence to bear to grant Leonardo the Anghiari commission. But Giocondo was a shrewd businessman with a reputation for hardknuckle negotiating skills. He wanted something in return for his advocacy of Leonardo’s talents: a portrait of his young wife, Lisa del Giocondo, who had just presented him with their third child.
Leonardo da Vinci, known as a thoroughly developed person, could hardly create using just one of his multiple talents. Each of his work demonstrates his thoughts in literature, engineering, painting, sculpturing, science etc. Thus, his most favorite work could be the one that comprises the manifestation of all of his talents. It is possible to suppose that The Last Supper is the canvas which was the most labor-intensive work of the author. “Working on this picture Leonardo demonstrated the best knowledge in sphere of religion, history, body constitution, geometry and a pure gift for painting. Besides, as a truly genius, the artist tried to transmit veiled message to the spectators”(Bortolon, 431). Many scholars nowadays regard this picture as the artist’s attempt to tell the true story of Jesus and The Virgin Mary life. Thus, taking into account the geniality and peculiarities of Leonardo da Vinci’s character it is possible to assume that The Last Supper is the author’s most appreciated work.
Arts and culture is the notions that make people intelligent and well brought-up. There are a lot of people of art who became perpetuate in the history of the art. Most of them passed away many centuries ago but we still keep appreciate and admire their works. A lot of art-goers dream about the possibility to get closer to their favorite artists and put them some questions about their personal attitude to their art and works of their contemporaries. This work is an attempt to take a deeper view on the creativity of two outstanding artists of Renaissance Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci by providing their possible attitude to the following questions: what they thought of each other’s work; which piece was their most favorite; what inspired them to become artists; and what trend they would pertain to in modern art.
Both of the authors are known by a great raw of outstanding world-famous works. All of the works are recognized masterpieces, but there is still a question which of them was the most favorite for their creators. Taking into account the Michelangelo’s position about the piece of art covered by the nature in the stone it is possible to admit that his Statue of David could be the most precious work for the artist. This gigantic statue is the manifestation of the biggest attempt to release art from the natural stone cage. “This masterwork, created out of a marble block definitively established his prominence as a sculptor of extraordinary technical skill and strength of symbolic imagination”. (Sporre, 159) The author’s craftsmanship reached its pick at this work. This fact enables to make a conclusion that the artist worked with maximum devotion and inspiration that made this statue so much prominent.
Leonardo da Vinci would appreciate the nowadays abundance of different technical and electronic devices. Thus, he could do his best in a new trend of modern art like installations. Those works presupposes wide use of different technical devices from various branches of science to present and reflect modern world. Leonardo could find a wide application for his many-sided talent working in this style and creating really outstanding installations.
Each of the authors walked a long way to the public recognizing. But it is always interesting to know why such people became the artists. Let’s imagine their possible answers. Michelangelo was growing up Florence, the city which was regarded as Italian cultural capital. The most outstanding artists were residents or frequent guests in this city. The fact, that: “Michelangelo lived with a stonecutter and his wife and family in the town of Settignano, where his father owned a marble quarry and a small farm”( Saslow, 356) can be an explanation how thy young sculpture gained his philosophy of the sculpture imprisoned in the stone. Thus, the early life of Michelangelo put a start of his progressing in the art.
Architectural Digest: A little-known fact is that Leonardo da Vincis last work before his death was to design a party for the King of France. Can you tell us some other party designs he may have done and what his inspirations were for these events?
Below, 500 years after da Vincis death, AD interviews Walter Isaacson on the innovator’s best creations, what he would be designing today, and more.
AD: When I read your biography, one of the parts that shocked me was Leonardo’s studies of lip muscles, which he dissected, and drew, alternately, with skin on and skin off, and the effect this most likely had on his creations of Mona Lisas smile. What most surprised you in researching the book?
WI: His greatest contribution to design was figuring out ways to make a scene painted on a flat panel look three-dimensional. He did it by figuring out the math of size and perspective, and how the sharpness of objects and their color saturation change as they get more distant. Finally, he added tricks from the theater, such as having walls angled inward to give the illusion of greater depth in his paintings, most notably The Last Supper. This idea of creating dimensionality in art was one of the great advances of the Renaissance.Most Popular
WI: What surprised me most was how closely his science was connected to his art. The dissection of lips at the same time he was painting the Mona Lisa is an example. In fact, I don’t think he made much of a distinction between art and science. For him, they were both ways to appreciate and describe the beauty of nature.
FAQ
What are 5 interesting facts about da Vinci?
- He didn’t go to school. …
- He liked to dissect corpses. …
- His masterpiece was destroyed. …
- He wrote in reverse. …
- Bill Gates bought Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook.
What was Leonardo da Vinci’s biggest challenge?
- Leonardo Da Vinci was born near Florence in Italy in 1452.
- Leonardo’s parents were not married. …
- Da Vinci was a huge animal lover. …
- Leonardo was left handed. …
- Leonardo obviously had an amazing mind but believe it or not he never went to school! …
- The Mona Lisa is a portrait of the wife of a Florentine official.
What is a famous quote from da Vinci?
