Leonardo

Leonardo Da Vinci made many contributions to the Italian renaissance Art with the innovation of sfumato and chiaroscuro modeling and also with the introduction of atmospheric landscape backgrounds. The techniques that Leonardo invented have been used by other artists and has had long lasting impacts in the world of art.

In Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper, he has put Christ at the eye level of the viewer something which was not typically done in Italian Renaissance art. Also Christ is framed by the apostles of who is about to tell them that one is about to betray him. In the time of the renaissance it was common for each of the individuals to be painted separately. Like in the San Zeno Altarpiece each of the individuals seems to just take up space none of these characters are interacting with each other, unlike in The Last Supper. There are four groups of three, in each group they seem to be in their own world, leaving Christ in the middle being framed by a window. Using this technique adds more subject mater and interaction for the view of the piece to the viewer.

In his most famous piece the Mona Lisa there are many techniques. He mastered the technique of sfumato, which is a transition between color areas

Leonardo's stylistic innovations are even more apparent in The Last Supper, in which he represented a traditional theme in an entirely new way. Instead of showing the 12 apostles as individual figures, he grouped them in dynamic compositional units of three, framing the figure of Christ, who is isolated in the center of the picture. Seated before a pale distant landscape seen through a rectangular opening in the wall, ChristÐ'--who is about to announce that one of those present will betray himÐ'--represents a calm nucleus while the others respond with animated gestures. In the monumentality of the scene and the weightiness of the figures, Leonardo reintroduced a style pioneered

...