The richness, the variety, and even the inherent contradictions of 15th-century Florentine painting are both embodied and transformed in the art and the person of the multifaceted genius Leonardo da Vinci. Although he devoted a great deal of his career to a theoretical treatise on the art of painting, he was above all interested in the appearance of things and in the way they operated. This curiosity led him to a study of the flight of birds, the movement of water, the features of the land, the mechanical advantage obtainable in gears and gear trains, the growth of plants, the ...(100 of 73439 words)