 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
15
For a year or two Leonardo worked for the notorious Cesare Borgia, designing battle engines,
siege devices and making maps. The Florentines commissioned Leonardo to paint the Battle of
Anghiari on a wall of a newly constructed Hall of Five Hundred in the Palazzo Vecchio. This
painting depicted an event from 15-th century history. It was part of a general programme to
celebrate the newly revived republic.
Leonardo's later life was a succession of trips between Florence, Milan and Rome. He painted
little in his later years. At his death Leonardo's artistic influence was immense, but much of his
scientific work had to await later rediscovery.
Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:
Leonardo da Vinci [
]; Raphael [
]; Immaculate Conception
[
]; magi [
]; Verrocchio [
]; Mona Lisa
[
]; Milan [
]; Cesare Borgia [
:
]; Rome [
]
NOTES
Baptism of Christ - "Крещение Христа"
Adoration of the Magi - "Поклонение волхвов"
Madonna of the Rocks - "Мадонна в гроте"
Madonna and Saint Anna - "Святая Анна с Марией и младенцем Христом "
Last Supper - "Тайная вечеря"
Mona Lisa - "Мона Лиза" (" Джоконда")
Battle ofAnghiari - "Битва при Ангиар"
TASKS
I. Read the text. Mark the following statements true or false.
1. When Leonardo began his career artists lived like princes.
2. In the Last Supper Leonardo has painted a higher reality, thus making a complete break with
the Early Renaissance.
3. The Battle of Anghiari is the earliest and most famous Leonardo's picture.
4. In the Madonna and Saint Anna the figures are pictured in a strange rocky shadowy grotto.
5. The Madonna of the Rocks was designed in Florence in 1501 and completed many years
later in Milan.
6. The Adoration of the Magi was Leonardo's last work.
II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?
1. How did Leonardo fulfil the Renaissance ideal of the Universal Man?
3. What does Leonardo's reputation as an artist rest on? What happened to his other works of
art? Why?
4. What is Leonardo's first masterpiece? What colour dominates in this work of art?
5. In what work of art has Leonardo interpreted the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception?
How has he interpreted it?
6. What does the Madonna and Saint Anna represent?
7. What compositional form dominates in Leonardo's works?
8. What is pictured in The Last Supper? Where do the figures operate? How are the Apostles
arranged? What does each of these numbers mean?
9. What is the Mona Lisa famous for? What is depicted in the background?
10. What else did Leonardo create in Florence?
11. What did Leonardo do in his later life?
III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:
an apprentice; to surpass the achievements of the time; a craftsman; workshop; the Oratory of
the Immaculate Conception; a monochrome underpaint; a pyramidal composition; the taint of the
Original Sin; traditional representations of the ordinary theme; sacrificial death; to manifest the
Divinity; to take smb under the protection; to betray the cause; the prophecy of the Baptism of
Christ; to create an enigma; notorious; a characteristic device; on the end wall of the refectory; to
make a complete break with; the figure sits in a relaxed position; to suffer in the course of time; a
smile plays about the lips; on the dry plaster.