The Secret Behind Renaissance Art: Leonardo Da Vinci & Mathematics

Leonardo Da Vinci is a famous Italian Renaissance artist whose famous artworks include Vitruvian Man, The Last Supper, and the Mona Lisa. Da Vinci’s art has remained vivid and significant throughout the centuries, highlighting how his paintings are not only artistically made through talent, but also with precise mathematical calculations and great detail. That being said, let’s dive into his masterpieces correlated with mathematics, the importance of his works, as well as explore hidden meanings of his incredible art.

Background

Da Vinci was born on April 15th, 1452, in Anchiano, within Italy’s Tuscany region, Florence. He maintained an average childhood with hobbies in music and drawing.

At the age of fifteen, Da Vinci’s father saw great potential in his talent. He quickly introduced him to Andrea del Verrocchio, a well known artist from Florence. Since then, his skill for art-which was mainly painting and sculpting-only continued to improve.

In his adulthood, Da Vinci pursued a higher degree of advanced mathematics, specifically in geometry and arithmetics. Though before he was thirty, he wasn’t too passionate about maths.

Vitruvian Man

The Vitruvian Man was completed around the year 1490. This was one of his early artworks which was created when he was at the age of thirty-eight; it is now located in Venice’s Gallerie dell’Accademia.

The painting shows a figure of a naked man standing in the centre of a square facing front. The man’s hands and feet touch the circle laid over the square. This artwork is named Vitruvian Man to the inspiration that Da Vinci found through Marcos Vitruvius, a Roman engineer and architect known for his principals on architecture.

Following the architect’s principals, Da Vinci used watercolour paper, pen, and ink to draw the image of a man touching the circle’s perimeter and the square in a superimposed arrangement.

Accenting shapes in the Vitruvian Man

The Golden Ratio, also known as the Divine Proportion, occurs when two numbers from the Fibonacci Sequence have a ratio approximate or close to 1.618. This phenomenon is found in the Vitruvian Man illustration.

At that time, even the most prominent mathematicians were challenged to solve the problem of creating a square with equal areas and from the area of a circle. Da Vinci managed to solve this mathematical phenomenon from the observations of Vitruvius, making this piece geometrically remarkable.

Da Vinci never failed to show a great demonstration of how geometry and mathematics are relevant in art. Due to the man’s arrangement, many Renaissance artists believe that the human body is the epitome of the universe.

The Last Supper

Dating back to the late 15th century (1495-1498), The Last Supper remains one of the most historical pieces created by Leonardo Da Vinci. The mural is known for its Biblical representation of Jesus Christ’s last dinner with his disciples; it is now located in Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy.

Da Vinci mixed perspective, naturalism, and great composition into his mural, highlighting its significant history in Italian Renaissance art. Though the Golden Ratio is also an important aspect in this art piece, The Last Supper is mostly known for Da Vinci’s techniques in combining linear perspective, a method is used to enhance the depth and realism of the painting.

Linearity in The Last Supper

In mathematical definition, linear perspective systems include a vanishing point, orthogonality-which is parallel or right-angled-and the horizon line. The main use of this system is to show the projections of three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional axis.

A one-point perspective, which is the vanishing point method, is used in this painting, making the right eye of Jesus Christ perfectly in the centre.

From the vanishing point, twelve horizontal lines can be drawn, representing the number of apostles, as they evenly divide the sections of the roof touching the line. The disciples’ arrangement follows the line, with the lower section of the painting as the perfect extension of the radical symmetry.

The dodecahedron, a geometrical three-dimensional shape containing twelve sides, has a unique correlation with the art. A number often seen from the geometrical patterns of this painting is the number twelve. A Greek philosopher, Plato, once claimed that the dodecahedron, the twelve-sided shape, is associated with the idea of divinity and heaven.

By placing it in the centre, the illustration of Jesus Christ fits faultlessly inside the shape. The edges of the solid aligns almost precisely with the radical symmetry extension from the vanishing point.

Mona Lisa

Created in the early 16th century (1503-1519), the infamous Mona Lisa renaissance painting reflects a portrait of Lisa Giocondo. The artwork is one of the most valuable and acknowledged works of Leonardo Da Vinci. It was once owned by Napoleon, but is currently displayed for the public in the Louvre Museum of Paris. Despite its incredible details, the Mona Lisa is still considered an unfinished project by Da Vinci.

Finding the Fibonacci Sequence in Mona Lisa

Famous for its usage of Golden Ratio patterns found in many of Da Vinci’s artworks, the Mona Lisa has many visible and hidden connections to the Fibonacci Sequence.

The Fibonacci Sequence is a steadily increasing set of numbers that results in the preceding two numbers of the sequence adding up. The geometrical representation of the sequence is a spiral which can be found in nature and art.

The Golden Ratio is applied in Renaissance paintings because it helps artists arrange and build anatomically accurate images of the human figure. The sequence acts as a composition grid to balance harmony in paintings.

A trademark of the Mona Lisa is that her eyes seem to follow the observer everywhere they go; this creates a mysterious yet phenomenal feature of Da Vinci’s artwork.

The striking realism of Mona Lisa’s anatomical construction is due to the use of the Golden Ratio. It shapes the frame of Mona Lisa, illustrating the basic structure of the painting. The pattern begins at the left hand of Mona Lisa, eventually making its way up to the head and face, and finally with the end of the spiral touching the centre-or the nose-of the woman.

Undoubtedly, the Mona Lisa smile is one of the reasons for the painting’s uniqueness. However, scientists have claimed that the honesty of her smile remains mysterious due to its asymmetry. The way viewers observe the painting all depends on which part of the eye they focus on, showcasing Da Vinci’s great control in perspective and precision.

The Big Question

So, are Leonardo Da Vinci and his works still relatable today? The answer is yes, definitely. His art not only remains as historical pieces for historians, artists, and scientists, but they’ve become great inspiration for many young people with passions for both the arts and sciences. Da Vinci proved that even with tough pasts, he was still able to create masterpieces through a combination of his skills.

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