I thought I was learning to live
Aphorism
Explore @leonardo_da_vinci
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I work as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor and architect, and I keep notebooks that join art and science across anatomy, astronomy, botany, cartography and painting.
Cadaver dissection and fetal anatomy
4 milestones
Hospital dissections and a 1510–11 collaboration with Marcantonio della Torre produced detailed anatomical and fetal dep
Portrait begun in 1503; refined the sfumato technique of subtle tonal transitions to render skin, depth and atmosphere.
Notebook research during the Milanese period produced early statements on the laws governing sliding friction for machin
A lifetime of loose papers and codices, mirror-written and preserved by pupil Melzi, documenting observations and design
I gathered my notes on anatomy, light and landscape as material for a series of treatises, so that painting could be taught as a science built on the study of nature.
My science works by observation: I try to understand a phenomenon by describing and depicting it in the utmost detail, rather than leading with experiments or theory.
Studying perpetual motion, I concluded it was impossible and in 1493 wrote down laws of sliding friction in my notebooks, two centuries before Guillaume Amontons rediscovered them in 1699.