Original subtitles

Adored by poets, plagiarised by artists, paraded by critics and even stolen by an Italian

workman, the most famous painting in the world, by the most celebrated artist in the world,

Leonardo da Vinci, a man who completed barely 20 pictures, but whose influence was immense,

a man of enormous curiosity who investigated everything from the possibilities of flight

to the workings of the human blood system, and whose intellect illuminated the world in which he lived.

Leonardo da Vinci was born just outside the small town of Vinci, near Florence,

on the 15th of April 1452, the illegitimate son of a peasant girl, and a local lawyer.

He lived with his father's family, a comfortable childhood, but nonetheless

one tainted by the feeling that his mother had rejected him.

As a young boy, Leonardo was said to have developed a profound love of nature.

Reputedly, he was a vegetarian, who bought birds in the market place in order to set them free.

Leonardo's upbringing was very traditional, but the world around him was changing and changing rapidly.

Explorers were discovering that there were places well beyond the continent of Europe,

and there were big developments in astronomy. The feudal system was declining,

and commerce and capitalism were rising. In turn, there was an intellectual revolution of foot,

based on a revival of classical art, architecture and scholarship,

which blossomed here, in a city that since become known as the cradle of civilisation, Florence.

Only a few miles from Vinci, 15th century Florence was one of the most powerful Italian city

states, thanks largely to its immensely successful wall and banking trades.

Rich families tried to make their mark for posterity, by financing ever more splendid

decorations of palaces, churches and monasteries. Among the growing number of respected artists whose

work graced the great buildings of the city was Andrea Delvarocchio, a sculptor and painter,

who ran one of the best studios, and in 1467 took on the 15-year-old Leonardo as an apprentice.

During his five years as Varocchio's pupil, he learnt to draw from life, prepare panels,

cast in bronze, and use oils. Oil painting was a recently imported technique from the Netherlands,

Leonardo began to explore the expressive possibilities of the new medium,

which gave colour and unprecedented freshness and depth.

Leonardo's first major individual painting was realized sometime in the mid-1470s,

and it's this one. It was commissioned by the nuns of the comment of Monti Oliveto,

just outside Florence, and it shows the Annunciation. That moment where the Angel Gabriel appears

to the Virgin Mary and tells the young Virgin, she's going to be the mother of Christ.

And Leonardo depicts this gently unfolding drama. There's the Angel making the gesture,

it's you. There's Mary in some ways shocked, but already that process of quiet reflection is starting.

This it seems to me is a number of pictures seeking some kind of unity. And in fact,

there are flaws in this work, even though it's by Leonardo Da Vinci. But I think the biggest

flaw is the Virgin herself. Even though a robe is actually tossed over the back of a chair,

it makes a look as if she's got three legs. Also, perhaps a little bit more disturbingly,

in order to bind the Virgin herself to this foreground scene and the lectern on which her book is

if you look at her arm, her right arm, it's actually far too overextended. It's way longer than

it should be. And that's Leonardo fudging it if you like to try and make the picture work. But the

redeem itself with this acute attention to detail. Most extraordinary of all is the way that he paints

Gabriel's wings. And this was unprecedented in Italian art, but he's studied birds, feathers, wings,

and he'd made detailed studies from nature. And then trans first what he's learned

to create an angel, this fantastical creation, but that's the point with Leonardo. It's nature

and a scrutiny of nature in order to bring everything closer to life.

His whole creative life was based on the need to understand a world around him in order to recreate it,

to produce as he put it, a second world of nature, which was his definition of painting.

Throughout his life Leonardo produced thousands of drawings of plants, people, machinery,

and architecture. Today over 7,000 pages from his notebooks survive, but countless more have been

lost. Some show quick sketches, others have very detailed illustrations.

Perhaps because he was left handed and didn't want the ink to smudges he wrote,

the text is always written back to front, so you need a mirror to read it from left to right.

Some also believe though that this was a deliberate attempt to conceal what he was up to,

but if he was hiding some of his intellectual talents under a bushel, his painterly ones

were beginning to burn brightly. Leonardo's progress in Florentine Society is marked

by this particular painting which was commissioned by the Benci family who in turn were

administrators in the Great Medici family's bank. And this is of their daughter,

Jeannevera de Benci, painted roughly in 1474, the year that she got married to a man twice

a age, here she is a 16 year old girl, and the emphasis on youth in this painting is very strong

because Leonardo himself is only in his early 20s. What we see is a picture of Jeannevera staring

out in a rather contemplative, distant kind of way, set against the backdrop of a landscape that's

beautifully rendered with a church steeple clearly visible in the background, soft colours,

this beautiful idealized river, and a bush right behind her head, which in fact is the Juniper

bush, Jeanneppro in Italian, and it's a rhyme or a pun on Jeannevera's name. The way that Leonardo

paints this shows how much his touch and style is developing. It's very controlled, look at

the way that the foliage or the bush itself is done. Look also at the way that a hair has been

highlighted to give it more body but to give the painting itself a greater sense of space and death.

Also, her hair has this dome-like appearance, and this was part of the fashion of the day,

and in fact women's eyebrows were plucked, and also their hair was plucked a little to give that

sense of smoothness. Her skin is almost bloodless, again, one of the fashions amongst women

of this social class was to have very pale skin, but one of the ways that Leonardo manages

to render the skin, so naturally, bringing it almost to life, is because, although he's using

a brush, he obliterates the brush stroke, sometimes by using his own fingers. Leonardo soon had

a studio of his own influence. The popular image of Leonardo is based on this late sketch by the artist.

We don't have any portraits of him as a young man, but in his 20s he was described as tall,

handsome, and something of a dandy in his dress. At the age of 24, he was accused of committing

acts of soldering with one of his models. Leonardo's homosexuality is an unresolved issue,

but in view of the morality of the times, not least the fact that it was punishable by death,

it may go some way to explaining his secretive and occasionally paranoid nature.

In 481, Leonardo was commissioned by a monastery just outside Florence to paint an

altar piece featuring the adoration of the Maygi. What we see now is mainly the brownish

underpainting, but we can still see his incredible range of gestures and facial expressions

with over 60 figures depicted. The whole scene is tied together by Leonardo's dynamic

yet carefully controlled composition. Using a precise system of perspective, he puts the

central characters in a simple triangular format, which is offset by the turbulent action all around

them. It's an image of confidence and energy which threatens to break out of the frame,

and yet it's calm at the centre. Like so many of his works though, it was to remain unfinished.

At the age of 30, and with the reputation established in Florence, Leonardo became restless,

and decided to leave for new challenges in the city of Milan. The Milan that Leonardo

eventually came to in 1482, didn't have quite the same stunning reputation for art as Florence did,

but it was larger and had a more cosmopolitan outlook towards the rest of Europe.

It was also ruled by one of the wealthiest, most powerful princes in Renaissance Italy,

Ludovico Svorte, Duke of Milan, who was a lavish patron of the arts.

Leonardo wrote to the Duke, abatizing the many services he could perform,

only adding at the end, that in painting I can do as much as anyone who ever he may be.

Leonardo actually thought his talents as military engineer and inventor

will be more useful to the Duke and better paid. But he wasn't immediately accepted into Ludovico's

court as he'd hoped. Instead, he had to rely on his painter's trade for income.

Leonardo's first known commission in Milan was this one, the so-called Virgin of the Rocks,

painted for a brotherhood of monks, the Comforternity of the Immaculate Conception,

in the Church of San Francisco Grande in the city. What we see now is an iconic work,

but it's a controversial one too. Leonardo instead of sticking to the rigid rules of a medieval

style commission, where almost every detail is stipulated in contract, decided he was going to

paint his own version of what initially was commissioned as a mother and child or holy family.

Instead, we see the presence of the Archangel Gabriel, but this is what annoyed the monks.

We also see the Blessed Virgin Mary with her arm rancent John, she's paying more attention

to John the Baptist than to her own son Christ. But what was really radical about this work and

what in fact led the monks to disregard the commission and refused to accept it was the radical

way that Leonardo treats the figures in the landscape, and in particular the relationship between

dark and light, and this picture almost on its own but not quite gave birth to the term in

Italian art, here a squirrel, a contrast of light and shade. So look at the four figures,

how they're almost being sucked into the darkness behind. They teach her on the edge of darkness

and light, but it gives them a dramatic glow and ethereal glow too. There's fantastic attention to

detail. The plants are almost botanical studies in themselves painted with as much attention

as the faces and figures and hands of the bodies of the holy family. But ultimately,

it's this grotto-like space in the background that's like a womb that threatens to overwhelm

that is the real dominant orchestrating part of the painting itself. And really never before this

had nature and creation been integrated so strongly with figures.

Leonardo now secured a permanent position with Duke Ludovico in Milan. His job involved a wide range

of duties from painting portraits of courtiers to designing elaborate courtly entertainment

as well as working on military engineering projects. The court environment was perfectly

in Idaho's particular needs. It gave the artist a permanent salary as well as the freedom

to pursue his own private studies such as optics and anatomy. In a local hospital, he dissected

over 30 corpses to understand better the workings of the human body. His anatomical drawings

are so detailed and so exact that they've been compared point by point to modern x-rays.

In his 17 years in Milan, Leonardo completed remarkably few works of art. He started something

but would quickly discover a new area of inquiry which he'd pursue but which then threw up

other questions and so it went on. A constant excitement but also a source of immense frustration.

Tell me he exclaimed frequently in his notebooks. Tell me if anything was ever done at all.

Leonardo's period in Milan did however produce a masterpiece of singular fame.

The last supper was commissioned in 1495 for the Convent of Santa Maria de la Gratzi

to be painted onto the walls of the Refectory where the monks ate their meals.

Unfortunately Leonardo couldn't resist experimenting and the project went dramatically wrong.

Much to his patron's frustration Leonardo worked very slowly.

To buy himself more time, he decided to try out his own concoction of slow-drying paints.

The experiment didn't work and the painting was in ruins before Leonardo had died.

Using Oils did help him accomplish an extremely high degree of modelling which combined

with his death handling of perspective must have suggested to the monks sitting down at their

tables that another dining hall had been added to their Refectory.

The scene captures the moment when Christ says one of you will betray me.

Each apostle is reacting with shock and disbelief.

Whilst Christ sits serenely resigned to his fate.

In his quest for naturalism Leonardo trolled the streets of Milan to find suitable characters to

transform into disciples via his sketchbooks.

He even sought specific models for certain body parts.

The mural was immediately held as miraculous and even divine, a monumental achievement

which is inspired artists from Rubens to Andy Warhol.

But Leonardo's career in Milan was cut short by war.

In 1499, a French army invaded the city and a Duke was captured.

Despite offers of work from the French king, Leonardo decided to leave.

The next few years proved an unsettled period for the artist.

He went to Mantua, Venice and then back to Florence.

But he didn't drive so well outside the court environment

and found it hard to meet the deadlines commissioned paintings demanded.

Instead, he used his many other talents.

He worked as an architectural consultant and teaks appraiser and mapmaker.

In 1500 and 3, he was employed by the ruthless general of the Pope's army, Cesare Borger.

For 10 months, Leonardo travelled around surveying the paper lands.

He drew extremely precise aerial views of towns and cities,

using a special colour wash to add relief to his images.

The maps he produced were more detailed and accurate than any others of the day,

and then now seen as the precursors to modern topography.

The following year, Leonardo was awarded a high-profile commission by the Florentine government

for its headquarters in the Palazzo de la Sineuria.

He was to paint in historical scene, twice as large as the last supper.

His young rival, Michelangelo, was commissioned at the same time to paint a similar battle scene on a facing wall.

Leonardo tried to paint with oil on polished plaster, but it wouldn't dry,

and eventually he had to abandon the project.

Had it been completed, the Battle of Angiari might have become Leonardo's most famous work.

Instead, it's a relatively mysterious and far less prestigious commission for which he's become

best known, an intimate portrait of a serene and smiling woman.

The Mona Lisa is not just the most famous work of art in the world, it's also one of the most

elusive, we're not totally certain who it is, but it seems likely, from notes in Leonardo's

estate, that it's a portrait of the wife of a Florentine merchant whose name was Lisa,

Lisa, Gerardini, Deljaconda. What we see there is a rather murky image now.

We have to sift through the varnish that in some ways has preserved it, but also the layers of

fame and celebrity that knives around this painting. But in fact, that's in some ways what Leonardo's

asking us to do, look beyond the surface, because flesh is painted here in a way that suggests

a world bubbling underneath. What he gives us is the image of a woman who woman it when you look at

her, she seems to be melancholic, and the next minute she seems breaking out into a smile,

and this is its originality. She's in the process of becoming, look around her mouth and you see

that it's that split second before the melancholy breaks into the smile itself, and he does this

through a technique known as Fumato, where the edges, particularly around the lips, are blurred slightly,

and it gives a sense of movement or transformation or transition. That's also backed up by the

landscape itself in the background, which is also a bubbling vibrant mash you can see the river flowing,

and then there's the idea if you look again, that the landscape not quite working, Leonardo's

excuse it, so the horizon lines on right hand side doesn't correspond with the horizon line on

the left hand side, and when you look at that there's almost a flicker your eyes being deceived

that the Mona Lisa herself has moved her head, and it adds to that sense of fluidity and dynamism.

And for these reasons, she's a staggering and celebrated work of art who within 10 years of Leonardo's death

was valued at a hundred skeudy and precedented, for painting of this size and for a portrait.

She also exists in the Louvre, the world's first great public gallery, and she was an early

example of a work reproduced in photography that became a postcard that was sent to the far

flan corners of the world by the end of the 19th century and started to attract people to come to Paris

on a kind of pilgrimage, and so, at the end of the 20th century into the 21st century,

what we have is something much more than a work of art, in an age of mass production, mass media,

and mass tourism. We have a work that is famous for being famous, where celebrity is a self-appetuating thing.

In 1500 and 6, Leonardo had become such an important international figure that the King of France

and the Government of Florence fought a diplomatic battle over his services. The French King won

and Leonardo returned to Milan as a court artist. As before, he devised courtly entertainments.

He also made designs for sculptures and buildings, but his artistic output was minimal during the

six years he spent back in the city. Most of his time was devoted to his studies, in particular,

researching to the human anatomy. In 1513, politics disrupted his career once again

when Milan was invaded and the French expelled. Into his sixties now, Leonardo found himself

without a job. He settled in Rome for three years working for the Pope's brother, mainly on military

inventions. Here he met Michelangelo and Raphael, but remained essentially an eccentric recluse.

This is one of his last works. It shows St. John the Baptist, pointing the way to heaven.

And it echoes the gesture made by the angel in the annunciation of his first painting in Florence.

But it's much more radical in that the saint is directly addressing the viewer.

Leonardo shows virtuosity in this luminous transparent way that he paints skin,

which he brings it to life. But at the same time, it's an airy work,

and a work where ambiguity, one of the hallmarks of his painting, is pushed to an extreme.

For a start, we're not sure whether this is a man or a woman, it blurs gender.

Also, what's supposed to be a biotific smile on the face of the saint,

looks slightly demonic, almost deranged. And then there's the ambition of trying to make

a painting almost totally out of the contrast of light and shade of Kira Scourou, which is ambitious,

which suggests depth as well as drama. But at the same time here, he's overmanored,

and the result is slightly mortkish, even sentimental. But of course, there's the other side of the

here as a man, in old age, who's still trying to push an experiment, and the lessons that

he's learned and developed over his life, he still wants to take to an extreme towards the end of it.

In 1516, Leonardo returned to the service of the French King Francis I,

this time at the Royal Palace near Ambois in France. His health began to deteriorate,

and he died on the 2nd of May 1519 at the age of 67.

The range of his creative activities and the scope of his imagination was immense,

a man who grasped perhaps a bigger picture than ever before, as well as painting them.

But he also realised how little mankind knew of the world around him,

and it's perhaps this intense self-awareness and thwarted ambition,

that are the real strength of Leonardo's genius.