Leonardo da Vinci's Drawings

Leonardo da Vinci's Drawings

Leonardo da Vinci's Drawings
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 6 to 8
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	6.55

Vocabulary

challenging words:

lifelike, self-portrait, recreate, internal, observant, tread, teaching, demonstration, textbook, better, realistic, various, alongside, anatomy, complex, structure

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Leonardo da Vinci's Drawings
By Sharon Fabian

¹     There is a drawing of the face of an old man. It is lightly drawn. The man's wavy white beard and long hair fill up most of the space around his face and blend in with the background. The one thing that stands out in the drawing is the man's eyes. Darker than the rest of the drawing, they look out beneath the shade of eyebrows grown long with age. The man's eyes appear intense - observant. Many people think this drawing by Leonard da Vinci is a self-portrait.

²     Leonardo believed that it was most important to be observant. He believed that artists had a special way of seeing.

³     Leonardo was interested in drawing and painting people, and he wanted his pictures to be realistic. So, in order to become a better artist, he studied human anatomy. He even dissected human corpses to observe the bone and muscle structure inside.

⁴     His drawings of human anatomy taught people of the Renaissance how the human body worked. He drew detailed sketches of bones and muscles. He drew them at various angles and in different positions. He also drew diagrams of internal organs, including the brain, the heart, and the lungs, to show how they worked. He wrote notes alongside of many of his drawings.

⁵     Leonardo thought of drawing as a way of teaching by sharing his observations. He had a word for this kind of drawings. He called them dimostrazione, or demonstration. Many years later, scientists and textbook publishers everywhere would be using detailed drawings like these.

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