Italian High Renaissance Painter and Inventor, 1452-1519 Italian High Renaissance Painter and Inventor, 1452-1519 Florentine Renaissance man, genius, artist in all media, architect, military engineer. Possibly the most brilliantly creative man in European history, he advertised himself, first of all, as a military engineer. In a famous letter dated about 1481 to Ludovico Sforza, of which a copy survives in the Codice Atlantico in Milan, Leonardo asks for employment in that capacity. He had plans for bridges, very light and strong, and plans for destroying those of the enemy. He knew how to cut off water to besieged fortifications, and how to construct bridges, mantlets, scaling ladders, and other instruments. He designed cannon, very convenient and easy of transport, designed to fire small stones, almost in the manner of hail??grape- or case-shot (see ammunition, artillery). He offered cannon of very beautiful and useful shapes, quite different from those in common use and, where it is not possible to employ cannon ?? catapults, mangonels and trabocchi and other engines of wonderful efficacy not in general use. And he said he made armoured cars, safe and unassailable, which will enter the serried ranks of the enemy with their artillery ?? and behind them the infantry will be able to follow quite unharmed, and without any opposition. He also offered to design ships which can resist the fire of all the heaviest cannon, and powder and smoke. The large number of surviving drawings and notes on military art show that Leonardo claims were not without foundation, although most date from after the Sforza letter. Most of the drawings, including giant crossbows (see bows), appear to be improvements on existing machines rather than new inventions. One exception is the drawing of a tank dating from 1485-8 now in the British Museum??a flattened cone, propelled from inside by crankshafts, firing guns. Another design in the British Museum, for a machine with scythes revolving in the horizontal plane, dismembering bodies as it goes, is gruesomely fanciful. Most of the other drawings are in the Codice Atlantico in Milan but some are in the Royal Libraries at Windsor and Turin, in Venice, or the Louvre and the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. Two ingenious machines for continuously firing arrows, machine-gun style, powered by a treadmill are shown in the Codice Atlantico. A number of other sketches of bridges, water pumps, and canals could be for military or civil purposes: dual use technology. Leonardo lived at a time when the first artillery fortifications were appearing and the Codice Atlantico contains sketches of ingenious fortifications combining bastions, round towers, and truncated cones. Models constructed from the drawings and photographed in Calvi works reveal forts which would have looked strikingly modern in the 19th century, and might even feature in science fiction films today. On 18 August 1502 Cesare Borgia appointed Leonardo as his Military Engineer General, although no known building by Leonardo exists. Leonardo was also fascinated by flight. Thirteen pages with drawings for man-powered aeroplanes survive and there is one design for a helicoidal helicopter. Leonardo later realized the inadequacy of the power a man could generate and turned his attention to aerofoils. Had his enormous abilities been concentrated on one thing, he might have invented the modern glider.   Related Paintings of LEONARDO da Vinci :. | Madonna Litta (detail sdg | Hl. Anna, Maria, Christuskind mit Lamm | Mona Lisa (mk45) | Study fur the Sforza-Reiterstandbild | The Virgin and Child with St Anne |
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georg engelhardt schroder
Georg Engelhard Schröder, född den 31 maj 1684 i Stockholm, gift 1727 med Anna Brigitta Spöring, död den 17 maj 1750; konstnär, porträtt- och historiemålare. Georg Engelhard Schröders far, Veit Engelhard, hade omkring år 1670 kommit från N??rnberg och bosatt sig i Stockholm där Georg Engelhard föddes 1684. Han blev tidigt elev hos konstnären och målaren David von Krafft (1655-1724) men lämnade honom 1703 för utlandsstudier. Under 21 år for Georg Engelhard runt i Europa. Han vistades först en tid i Nordtyskland, innan färden gick vidare till Italien. I Venezia förblev han under fem år och kopierade gamla mästare, sysslade med vedutamåleri och hade kontakt med pastellmålarinnan Rosalba Carriera (1675-1757). I Roma tog han intryck av barockmålarna Carlo Dolci (1616-1686), Carlo Maratta (1625-1713), Francesko Trevisani (1656-1746) m.fl. och tillägnade sig det raska men ytliga framställningssätt, som tillhörde den tidens italienska konst. I Paris samlade han impulser hos den franske målaren Noel Nicolas Coypel (1690-1734). Reminiscenser av den italienska och franska konsten kan man påträffa flerstädes i hans kompositioner. I London stannade han i sju år och tog starka intryck av Godfrey Knellers (1646-1723) och Dahls porträttkonst. När Daniel von Krafft avled 1724 kallades Georg Engelhard Schröder hem till Sverige och efterträdde i december sin gamle läromästare som kunglig hovkonterfejare. Som sådan uppbar han lön. Konung Fredrik I satte stort värde på sin konterfejare, och lät honom måla otaliga porträtt av sig och sin drottning Ulrika Eleonora. År 1745 utnämndes han till hovintendent. Georg Engelhard anlitades mycket och samlade ihop en betydande förmögenhet. På 1740-talet nåddes Sverige av den nya franska smaken, i främsta rummet via konstnären Gustaf Lundberg (1695-1786), varvid Georg Engelhard kom att skjutas åt sidan. Han representerade i Sveriges 1700-talsmåleri sista skedet i det italienska inflytandet. Långt ifrån den förnämste, var dock Georg Engelhard en av sin tids mest uppburne målare. Han arbetade inom ett vitt fält: utförde kyrktavlor, allegorier, historiska motiv och porträtt. Hans arbeten har ej sällan någonting vacklande och obestämt, vilket i förening med mycken ojämnhet i utförandet gör många av dem mindre tilltalande för konstkännaren. Han har dock efterlämnat verk, som vittnar om, att han, när han allvarligt uppbjöd sin förmåga, var mäktig till både varm och djup uppfattning samt hade stor skicklighet i färgbehandling och i framställningens enskildheter.
Angelo Bronzino
(November 17, 1503 - November 23, 1572), usually known as Il Bronzino, or Agnolo Bronzino (mistaken attempts also have been made in the past to assert his name was Agnolo Tori and even Angelo (Agnolo) Allori), was an Italian Mannerist painter from Florence. The origin of his nickname, Bronzino is unknown, but could derive from his dark complexion, or from that he gave many of his portrait subjects. Bronzino was born in Florence. According to his contemporary Vasari, Bronzino was a pupil first of Raffaellino del Garbo, and then of Pontormo. The latter was ultimately the primary influence on Bronzino's developing style and the young artist remained devoted to his eccentric teacher.
Heinrich Vogeler
1872-1942,German painter, printmaker and architect. He studied from 1890 to 1893 in D?sseldorf. In 1895 he bought the Barkenhoff in Worpswede, near Bremen. Soon afterwards, with colleagues from the WORPSWEDE COLONY, including Fritz Mackensen, Fritz Overbeck (1869-1909), Hans am Ende (1864-1918) and Otto Modersohn (1865-1943), he exhibited successfully at the Glaspalast in Munich. He provided illustrations for the periodical Die Insel, and undertook the interior decoration of the G?ldenkammer in Bremen. In 1906 he visited Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) for convalescence and in 1909 he went to England to study the principles of the garden city movement. He served in the German army in World War I, his writing of a pacifist letter to the Emperor in January 1918 prompting an official inquiry into his state of mental health. In 1919 he founded the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Barkenhoff in Worpswede, in an unsuccessful attempt to create an Arbeitsschule and a utopian community.