Leonardo da Vinci - Kathleen Krull [5]
A new boy (at the time, artists’ apprentices were always boys) would start out sweeping the floor, running errands, cleaning paintbrushes, and heating up varnish or glue. As he learned the basics of drawing, his special talents would reveal themselves. He would graduate to crafting paintbrushes from animal hair, stretching canvases, mixing the paints from scratch, and applying gold leaf to backgrounds.
The apprentice would learn about the use of color, how to lay down the first coats of tempera (an egg-based paint), how to transfer a drawing to another surface, how to paint directly onto walls, and how to carve stone. He might be allowed to finish whole sections of paintings depending on whether he was good at landscapes, clothes, or faces. He would have to work some twelve hours a day, every day of the week except Sunday, every week of the year.
Leonardo was continually practicing his drawing. There was a lot to learn. In the Middle Ages, images in paintings had appeared flat, limited to two dimensions. But in 1413, the architect and artist Filippo Brunelleschi worked out the mathematical principles of linear perspective. Now paintings could give the illusion of depth. A young artist like Leonardo would need to study mathematics in order to portray nature as it actually appeared, in three-dimensional space.
The workshop was like another laboratory for Leonardo, after the natural world of his early childhood. Its spirit was almost as much scientific as artistic, with observations and experiments leading to new techniques. An apprentice would be always experimenting with potions—oil of cypress with water to make an amber-colored paint, saliva to keep pens wet. One job was to prepare wood panels for painting; in later life, Leonardo revealed his recipe as a lengthy process using twice-distilled turpentine, arsenic, boiled linseed oil, and human urine.
The first big project Leonardo probably helped see through to completion was a two-ton giant bronze ball. It was for the city’s famous cathedral—to go atop its dome, designed by Brunelleschi. Every man and boy in the workshop was called upon to help. The final hoisting of the ball into place was a huge celebration that Leonardo certainly attended—along with the whole shouting city.
Being an artist could clearly bring sparkling acclaim.
It also brought approval from his father.
One day Piero stopped by the workshop. He had a plain wooden shield he needed painted as a favor to someone. Leonardo took the job and went all out. He decided the picture on a shield must be frightening, so he collected lizards, bats, crickets, snakes, insects. Then he dissected them. He arranged the most interesting body parts into the scariest possible monster, spitting fire. He painted the beast on the shield, which he displayed in a corner of a dark room, and invited his father in for a dramatic unveiling.
Piero was actually frightened at first, then delighted. He took it away and picked up a cheap shield (decorated with a simple heart pierced by an arrow) to give to his friend. Did Piero keep his son’s shield? No. He sold it for a nice sum.
Verrocchio encouraged his apprentices to dissect small dead animals as a way to learn to portray anatomy. This was something easy, if unusual, for Leonardo to do. In fact, in the study of anatomy at that time, artists were as knowledgeable as anyone, even medical students.
Verrocchio required his artists to depict the human form with complete accuracy, which meant they were expected to study how the body was constructed. Instead of working from the imagination, they had to draw live models. They could also make plaster casts of body parts, both their own or those of corpses.
It seems Verrocchio was one of those inspiring teachers who change lives.