Leonardo da Vinci's Portrait of a Young Woman in Profile: studies of beauty and 'ideal' proportions.

摘要

LEONARDO DA VlNCI (1452-1519), the most fascinating figure of the Renaissance, was born onAprill5,1452,inthe Tuscan hill town of Vinci, near Florence, Italy. He was the illegitimate son of Piero d'Antonio, a Florentine notary, and a young peasant woman, Ca-terina. Illegitimacy meant he was not permitted to learn Greek or Latin as a child, which forced the young Leonardo to learn to think for himself and withdraw into a private world of observation and invention. Leonardo's artistic aptitude appeared relatively early. When he was 15 years old, his father apprenticed him to Andrea del Verrochio, in whose workshop Leonardo received training in painting and sculpture.