Leonardo da Vinci

Experiment within the work of a commissioned artist

Leonardo worked on commissioned pictures while investigating unresolved forms and mechanisms. Trained in a Florentine workshop, he moved among cities and courts for patronage. Observation depended on materials and opportunities as well as curiosity.

Workshop training joined materials, drawing and commissioned production. Under Ludovico Sforza in Milan he also designed for performances. Courtly practical work broadens a career often reduced to a few celebrated paintings.

Movement among Milan, Florence, Rome and France brought changing patrons, commissions and opportunities for investigation.

Working notebooks and experiments with materials

Codex Forster mixes geometry and hydraulics with locks, costumes and artistic recipes. Mirror writing and upside-down use reflect a working notebook. Adjacent notes do not necessarily form a finished, orderly treatise.

Machine drawings include proposed mechanisms, distinct from documented working constructions. Even without a surviving device, they preserve attempts to understand the transfer of force or the movement of water.

The Last Supper used a wall-painting method different from ordinary fresco and began deteriorating during Leonardo’s life. Material experimentation left conservation weaknesses alongside celebrated figures and space. Later restoration had to address both composition and damaged physical material.

Pictorial composition and surviving manuscripts

Christ anchors the Last Supper, with architectural lines directing attention toward the center. Different gestures express reactions. Relationships and movement organize the religious scene rather than a uniform row; spatial direction and bodily expression work together.

Sfumato in the Mona Lisa blends transitions of light and shade to model form beyond an enclosing line. Written and drawn observation relates to this transformation into visual expression, without making every notebook study a preparatory drawing for this one painting.

Manuscripts dispersed after Leonardo’s death. Collecting and donation brought the Forster material to the V&A. Later custodians assembled, preserved and made papers available for study; the present grouping does not contain all his investigations. Conservation helped transmit the observations.

Turning points

1. 1452

   Born near Vinci.

2. 1470s

   Worked as a painter in Florence.

3. 1480s–1490s

   Worked and investigated at the Milanese court.

4. About 1516–1517

   Moved to France.

5. 1519

   Died at Amboise.

Their legacy

Notebooks turned observations into words and diagrams; paintings arranged light and gesture. The fragile materials of The Last Supper also show how artistic experiment could create conservation problems.