Leonardo Da Vinci

When Leonardo was scrolling around the market place in Florence with his pupils he liked to visit the bird dealers. He would buy a few birds, then take them out of their cages and set them free. It was one of Leonardo's    most heartfelt desires to lift himself into the air some day. He drew a parachute, a glider and a helicopter in his sketchbook.

Leonardo wrote down his observations on birds in mirror writing, so that he would not smudge the ink as he wrote left-handed, and scribbled pictures alongside them, intended to show how birds move their wings. Leonardo regarded the observation of nature and painting as one and the same thing: art was intended to provide  a better understanding of the world.


Da Vinci's Paintings