Leonardo da Vinci and the Italian High Renaissance

Professor Bent details the swelling political, cultural and artistic changes in Italy; all of which lay the groundwork for the High Renaissance that Leonardo, through his life and work, comes to define and change forever.

Studying Leonardo; common myths about the artist and signature works such as the "Mona Lisa" and "The Last Supper"; important sources for the life and career of Leonardo; the detailed (yet opinionated) "The Lives of the Artists" by Giorgio Vasari.

Leonardo is not born great but learns his skills from his contemporaries and predecessors; Leonardo's artistic growth under his master, Andrea del Verrocchio; he is influenced by Masaccio and Donatello; the humanist thinker Leon Battista Alberti.

Leonardo's artistic growth amid revolutionary changes in art; the rise of paper as the surface of choice for drawings; the introduction of oil paint as a new medium in Italy; Leonardo's contribution to Verrocchio's "The Baptism of Christ".

The successful Leonardo experiments with replicating nature and depicting delicate draperies; Professor Bent's analysis of Leonardo's first commission as a master painter in Verrocchio's workshop; "Annunciation", a masterpiece (1473 - 1474).

Grasping Leonardo's originality; traditional approaches to portraits from antiquity to the early Renaissance; this artist revolutionizes the genre; his portrait of Ginevra de' Benci; a woman's individual features and intellectual presence.