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Leonardo da Vinci: Creative Genius
Introduction:
Leonardo da Vinci—one of history’s most imaginative geniuses—was
certainly born at the right time and in the right place. The Italian Renaissance
was an exciting period of discovery and invention, of exploration and creation.
Students will discover why Leonardo is considered the ultimate Renaissance
man. They will learn about his famous notebooks, focusing upon his machines
of motion, then zooming in on the flying machines. As a culminating activity,
the students will describe how Leonardo epitomizes the Renaissance man, by discussing
this remarkable artist and inventor through the amazing variety of his creativity.
Guiding Questions:
- Who was Leonardo da Vinci and how does he exemplify the period in which
he lived, the Renaissance?
- In what areas does he show creative genius and what is the evidence for
this genius?
- Why is the work of Leonardo intriguing even in modern times?
Learning Objectives:
Upon completing this unit, students will be able to:
- Describe the Renaissance, and explain how Leonardo da Vinci reflected the
spirit of the age
- Discuss the many achievements of Leonardo
- Explain the significance of his famous notebooks.
- Describe some of Leonardo’s inventions and contributions in a variety
of fields.
Preparing to Teach This Lesson:
Leonardo da Vinci lived during one of the most creative periods in the history
of Western Europe—the Renaissance. The rediscovery of the philosophical
and scientific treatises of classical Greece and Rome had changed the way scholars
and artists thought about the universe. After centuries of domination by the
Catholic Church, the focus shifted to the power of reason and the potential
of man. The other-worldliness of the Church-dominated medieval period gave way
to the eager investigation of this world, leading to a revolution in the realms
of art, architecture, technology, engineering, and many fields of science.
Leonardo was a mirror of the age in which he lived. Artist, scientist, engineer,
architect, musician and courtier par excellence, he embodied what came to be
known as the multi-talented Renaissance Man. Leonardo carefully studied the
world around him. He believed that art should clearly reflect the wonders of
the natural world. But his works also contained a certain mystery. His Mona
Lisa, perhaps the world’s most famous painting, is known for her
haunting smile. Leonardo was also fascinated by the way things worked. He mused
endlessly about cause and effect, filling thousands of pages of his famous notebooks
with sketches and commentary dealing with subjects as diverse as the anatomy
of a horse and the design of a hydraulic pump.
Leonardo was also intrigued about the possibilities of locomotion, and he designed
a number of machines that would enable man to get around faster. Most of all,
he was fascinated by the possibilities of human flight. He captured birds and
studied their feathers and skeletal systems to puzzle out the secrets of aerodynamics.
He studied the flow of water in rivers and streams as well as the effects of
tides in order to better understand wind currents. Using what he observed in
nature, he designed some very ingenious flying machines.
For additional background information on Leonardo and the Renaissance, go to
Introduction
to the Renaissance available through EDSITEment-reviewed resource Metropolitan
Museum of Art. Read up to the section “Looking at the Art of the Renaissance” for
general information about the period, and the rest of the article for a focus
on art.
Review the materials students will explore on the Boston
Museum of Science site and Leonardo’s
Studio from the BBC program on Leonardo.
Review the activities in this lesson plan. Locate and bookmark suggested materials
and useful websites. Download and print out documents you plan to use and duplicate
copies as necessary for student viewing.
Suggested Activities
1. Leonardo da Vinci: Renaissance Man
Explain that the term “Renaissance man” refers to someone who has
a mastery of many fields. Then mention that Leonardo is known as the Renaissance
man par excellence. Students will explore Leonardo’s world and decide
for themselves what his greatest contributions to Renaissance society were.
But you may want first to introduce students to Leonardo the artist, and one
of the most famous paintings with which they are probably already somewhat
familiar.
Although he was multi-talented, Leonardo is best known today for his paintings.
And certainly the most famous of his paintings is the Mona Lisa.
- Go to Frame
Oeuvre available through Learner.org.
- What is it about the painting that students think make it probably the best
known painting in the world?
- Ask them to notice details other than Mona Lisa’s famous smile. Leonardo
used a special technique, sfumato, from the Italian word sfumare,
which means to fade out, or evaporate, in painting Mona Lisa’s face.
- What else in the painting contributes to the mysterious appeal? Have students
notice other features, such as Mona Lisa’s hands.
- Also have students pay particular note to the background, and the hazy,
mist-like quality of the background landscape. Here Leonardo is using a painting
technique similar to sfumato, for which he was particularly known, aerial
perspective.
- Leonardo was also a master of chiaroscuro, a method of painting
by using light and shade to define shapes and forms.
- Ask students what else they notice about this painting that appears unusual
or especially appealing.
For information on the famous painting have students go to the BBC’s
website
on Leonardo and read the brief summary on the painting.
Ask students to view other images from Leonardo’s painting in the BBC
Picture Gallery.
What elements in the painting do they associate with what they have learned
about Leonardo? (Some examples include his use of sfumato,
chiaroscuro,
and aerial perspective.)
2. Man as the Measure of All Things
Now that the students have made the acquaintance of Leonardo da Vinci, the
artist, they’re ready to do a bit of research to enrich their understanding
of this great man and the age in which he lived.
Leonardo da Vinci was easily swept up with the spirit of his times. Drawn to
many arenas of creative activity, he plunged into one project after another,
with some amazing results. Have students read a brief overview of Leonardo’s
Life at Renaissance Man
from the Museum of Science in Boston, available
through the EDSITEment-reviewed resource Museum
of the History of Science.
Divide the class into groups, assigning each group a specific area in which
Leonardo made a significant contribution to his time and to society in general—in
aerodymanics, anatomy, architecture, botany, engineering, mathematics, optics,
ornithology, painting, or physics. Each group will explore its assigned area
and then make a case for Leonardo’s great contribution to Renaissance
knowledge in that particular area.
Contributions:
Aerodynamics
Anatomy
Architecture
Art
Engineering
Mathematics
Optics
Natural History
Physics
For a quick overview of the range of Leonardo’s talents, have students
access Explore Leonardo’s
Studio available through the Museum
of the History of Science at Oxford, England.
Instruct the students, working in groups, to locate the 12 objects in the interactive
picture and to learn all they can about each one.
When they have finished, have each group note the information that fits the
area they have been assigned for Leonardo. They can do this on the chart in
the PDF file, Leonardo
da Vinci: Renaissance Man.
3. Deciphering Leonardo’s Notebooks
From boyhood, Leonardo da Vinci was a keen observer of the world around him.
As a young man, he began the habit of writing notes about his observations.
In 1482 he began a wide variety of scientific research projects ranging from
botany and anatomy to military engineering and geography. He jotted
down his ideas and theories, accompanied by detailed sketches, in a collection
of notebooks. In time, he would fill thousands of pages.
Leonardo’s notebooks are not easy reading. The subject matter changes
abruptly as a new idea popped into his mind. He also used strange spellings
and abbreviations. And most intriguing, the pages are most easily read if they
are held up to a mirror!
- Go to Leonardo
Right to Left available through Museum
of the History of Science.
- After studying the information on this web page, you might have your students
attempt to write their own names using mirror-image handwriting. It’s
not as easy as it seems. Be sure to have a mirror on hand.
- Leonardo’s notes and sketches are currently divided into ten manuscripts,
known as codices.
Go to the Museum
of Science in Italy, a link from Explore
Leonardo’s Studio available through Museum
of the History of Science.
- After reading the text, have each group pick one or more of the images depicted
from the ten manuscripts by Leonardo. They can zoom in on the image and then
observe it carefully to gather evidence to support their conclusion that Leonardo
should be best known for his contribution to the particular field they were
assigned.
- Students can fill in the information they gather in the chart, Leonardo
da Vinci: Renaissance Man provided here as a PDF file.
For a more detailed look at Leonardo’s manuscripts, students can virtually
leaf through portions of Leonardo’s notebooks, as a class, or again in
groups.
- Access Turning
the Pages on the Web from the British Library, available through Museum
of the History of Science. Click on Leonardo’s Notebooks.
- Before viewing the pages, click on Read About
the Leonardo Notebook for background information.
- Now open the cover and begin to peruse the pages.
You can magnify the drawings as well as the writing. Notice the mirror writing
(and the upside-down writing). At first impression, what do these pages seem
to be about?
- Now click on Text and read the descriptions. Can you
find the “doodles?” Why do you think Leonardo scattered proverbial
sayings and riddles among his more scientific musings? What are the main topics
addressed in the pages?
Students can also view another Leonardo codex, available from the Ambrosiana
Library in Milan. The text is in Italian, but students should focus on the images
to gather clues to determine Leonardo’s area of expertise as indicated
by his drawings.
4. Those Wonderful Flying Machines
Leonardo spent a good deal of time thinking about how people could get around
faster—on the earth, in the water, and even in the air. After studying
the anatomies of certain wild creatures and tinkering around with mechanisms
like gears and pulleys, he came up with some designs for vehicles that were
way ahead of his time.
For this lesson you can keep students in the assigned groups or, if taught
in a science class, you may want to assign each student a drawing and have them
consider the kind of knowledge necessary to invent the machine depicted. For
example, for students choosing engineering as Leonardo’s greatest accomplishment,
have them
- Go to Leonardo
available through Museum of the History
of Science. Click on Machines, then War Machines,
then Armoured car. Double click on the drawing to enlarge it. What
is the purpose of this machine? Can you think of its modern counterpart? Now
read the text of this page, beginning with Leonardo’s own words. Do
you think this machine would have worked? Why or why not? What animal probably
inspired Leonardo to design this machine?
- Now click on Water
Craft under Machines. How did Leonardo’s study of the
natural world influence his designs of watercraft?
But it was the possibility of human flight that particularly intrigued Leonardo.
Since very ancient times, man had dreamed of being able to fly. Leonardo came
up with a number of ways that, he thought, just might work.
- Return to Leonardo.
Click on Machines, then Flying Machines, then Aerial
Screw. Enlarge the drawing. Here is Leonardo’s design of a helicopter.
What toy inspired this machine?
- Return to Flying Machines and click on Device for Beating
Wings. This is one of many examples in which Leonardo used the wings
of birds and bats as models for a flying machine. See another example by clicking
on Articulated Wing.
- Click on Flying Ship. Leonardo must have spent a good deal of
time watching the way birds maneuver their tail feathers as they fly. Does
this seem more like an airplane or a boat?
- Click on Glider with Maneuverable Tips. Enlarge the drawing to
see Leonardo’s imagination at work. A different glider design (more
like a hang glider) can be found at Glider.
If one is going to fly, it’s important to have a means of escape in
case something goes wrong in the air. So Leonardo came up with a novel idea:
the parachute.
- Return to Leonardo
and navigate to parachute. Now go to parachute
available through Museum of the History
of Science. In what way is Leonardo’s parachute superior to its
modern counterpart?
Given the times in which he lived, Leonardo’s designs for flying machines
were amazing! Although there were some major flaws, his designs would eventually
evolve into the modern airplanes of today. Leonardo never actually built any
models of his designs, but you can view some that have been made in modern times.
- Go to The
Leonardo Museum in Vinci available through Learner.Org.
View the following models on the Ground floor: Flapping Wing, Detail
of a Mechanical Wing, Flying Machine, Helicopter, and
Tank. Now go to the First Floor and view the following: Spring
driven car, Paddleboat, Articulated Wing, Crank
operated cart, and Parachute.
- As you view each vehicle, consider its possible source of inspiration, and
what kind of expertise or knowledge Leonardo would need to create such a device.
- Knowing that some modern day machines that resembled these devices weren’t
actually created until several hundred years later, some as late as the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, which ones do students consider the most remarkable
and forward thinking? Which ones do they think would actually perform as intended?
Why or why not?
Assessment
Have each student group, or as individuals, present evidence that Leonardo
should be recognized for his contribution to a particular field, and why this
would make him an important member of Renaissance society.
As a whole class, assign students to write an essay on what constitutes a Renaissance
man (or woman) and why Leonardo epitomizes the true Renaissance man. The essays
should cover the range of Leonardo’s creative talents and acknowledge
the impact of his ideas and designs on future society as well.
Extending the Lesson
One of Leonardo’s most unusual (and modernistic) inventions was a humanoid
robot. To find out more about this project, access Leonardo’s
Robot available through Museum of the
History of Science.
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