Leonardo Da Vinci is nearly as famous for many of his drawings and sketches as he was for his completed paintings. The difference of course is that his completed works are much less in number and often took him years to complete. His drawings, often found in his notebooks, ranged from simple sketches of arms for use in the Last Supper to fully featured sketches of paintings he would eventually alter or never painted at all.

Because he was such an incredibly apt draftsman, there are infinitely more journals of small sketches than completed works of art. In fact, it is often said that between Leonardo Da Vinci’s studies and paintings, he preferred his studies and painted rarely because of the demands of his other studies. Regardless, he was one of the greatest artists who ever lived and it shows even in the simplest of sketches.

The earliest Da Vinci illustration, dated back to 1473, is that of a Landscape of the Arno Valley. This sketch is an incredibly detailed depiction of the river, mountains, Montelupo Castle, and farmlands beyond the castle of the valley. From here, he would go on to sketch numerous other drafts.

The most famous of his many drawings is that of the Vitruvian Man. Kept now carefully guarded, the Vitruvian Man is one of the most famous single images in history and depicts the carefully crafted proportions of the ideal male body. Another incredibly famous and largely used drawing is that of the Head of an Angel, a sketch utilized for The Virgin of the Rocks.

The most impressive of Leonardo Da Vinci’s classical drawings would have to be the 160×100 cm rendering in black chalk of The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist. Using the same techniques developed in the Mona Lisa of sfumato and shadowy corners, the drawing was never made into a painting. The closest painting to this image is that of The Virgin and Child with St. Anne.

Leonardo’s drawings consist of numerous other creations, many of which include what were once considered caricatures. However, after close studies of the heads and bodies drawn, it has been largely agreed upon that they were real models with deformities of some kind. Additionally there are numerous sketches of a certain man whose “Grecian Profile” was greatly appreciated by Leonardo during his career. The sketches often show the young man dressed in fancy costumes, possibly related to the pageants for which Leonardo occasionally worked.

There are numerous sketches devoted solely to the effects and depiction of fabric as seen in draperies. Leonardo worked extensively to do so in his early career. There is one particular sketch that exists as an early example of likely hired work. Leonardo sketched the death from hanging of Giuliano Baroncelli. He political conspiracy aside, Leonardo wrote casually of the deceased clothing.

One final famous sketch that has been tied to Leonardo and mentioned repeatedly when studying his other works is the Leonardo Da Vinci self portrait. The portrait of Leonardo Da Vinci is a simple rendition of himself in the latter years of his life. However, the controversy surrounding that picture of Leonardo Da Vinci’s face arises from the direct connection between the facial structures of the self-portrait and the Mona Lisa and St. John the Baptist. It has lead to much speculation that the Mona Lisa might in fact be Da Vinci himself or another woman. However, as there are no other pictures of Leonardo Da Vinci, there is no real way to know.

Paintings of the 1490s

In the 1490s, the most widely known and popular of Leonardo Di Vinci’s paintings is the Last Supper. Started in 1495, the painting depicts the final meal between Jesus and his disciples shortly before he was captured and executed. This piece of Leonardo da Vinci’s artwork in particular relays the exact the moment when Jesus announces that he will be betrayed.

The painting shows an entire story with each disciple reacting in their own manner. Vasari’s biography goes into great detail in the methods Leonardo took in painting the mural, and the time it took him. Some days he would paint for hours and other days he would simply stare at the wall for hours and eventually spent days walking through the city trying to find a suitable face for Judas.

The painting was finished in three years and immediately hailed as a masterpiece. However, the problem with the painting was the fact that it could not remain on the wall for longer than a decade or so before it began to flake free. Leonardo, in a rare instance of failed experimentation, tried to use new binding agents for his painting instead of the reliable old method of Fresco. It quickly molded and flaked off. However it has remained one of the most reproduced works of art on earth. How many other paintings did Leonardo da Vinci paint in his latter years though?

Paintings of the 1500s

After finishing the Last Supper, the art of Leonardo Da Vinci actually became more impressive as he took to another masterpiece that the world has been fawning over ever since. This work, the Mona Lisa, has become one of the most enduring works of art, with the knowing smile that has captivated five centuries of fans. This particular painting first utilized Leonardo’s sfumato technique, or the use of blending shadows for ambiguous lines. When Leonardo Da Vinci created the painting, female head perspective was still quite underdeveloped. Located in the Louvre today, the Mona Lisa is also one of Leonardo’s best surviving works of art and a pinnacle in understanding the subtleties of human emotion.

Many consider The Virgin and Child with St. Ann Da Vinci’s most underrated work. It is another famous composition set in landscape during these later years of his career. The figures are once more set at odd angles, much like the earlier unfinished St. Jerome piece. The painting is slightly different as Mary is seated on the knee of her mother and leans forward to support Christ as he plays with a lamb. This painting introduced numerous trends of superimposition into the landscapes that Venetian painters such as Tintoretto would pick up in later years.

In 1508, Da Vinci painted the famously lost composition of Leda and the Swan, depicting the mythical woman standing naked beside her swan, overlooking two sets of twins below, recently hatched from egg shells. Today, only copies and no original of Leonardo Da Vinci’s paintings survive to relay the image, similar to the fate of Michelangelo’s famous Leda and the Swan painting, depicting the two in the throws of love making.

Another painting that has been disputed from this era is the famously multi-credited St. John in the Wilderness painting, depicting St. John holding a stick in the wilderness with a laurel and fruit. It is unknown who painted this exactly, but its discovery has been attributed to Da Vinci’s workshop.

Completed in 1516, St. John the Baptist is considered to be Da Vinci’s last known painting. Only recently attributed to him, the painting depicts a lightly smiling St. John pointing heavenward. Heavy comparisons have been made between this painting and that of the Mona Lisa as well as the self portraits of Da Vinci to which both sets of facial features compare so readily.

Early Paintings Leonardo Da Vinci Painted and Info on Them

Many ask the question, How many paintings has Leonardo Da Vinci painted? The answer is: not very many. However, those that he did paint have become worldwide masterpieces recognized everywhere for their incredible talent. Leonardo DaVinci’s paintings first began appearing in the 1470s with the Baptism of Christ, painted in tandem with Verrocchio. During his time spent in Verrocchio’s workshop, two other paintings are believed to have been painted, both Annunciations. The first is a small 59cm long, 14 cm high piece. It is a “predella” for a much larger work, a painting by Lorenzo Di Credi. The second of these Annunciations was a 217 cm long piece, much larger in scale.

Both of these initial paintings were crafted in the very basic Fra Angelico formation, pictures of the Virgin Mary sitting on the right side of the picture with an angel to her left. The angel in both paintings is wearing a flowing gown and has raised wings and a lily. In the smaller, first picture, Mary has her eyes downcast as a submissive gesture toward God. In the second, larger picture however, Mary is not submissive at all. The second picture shows Mary with a finger placed in her bible to mark her place and a hand raised in greeting to the angelic visitor before her. She takes on her position as the Mother of God with confidence. This first of a handful of Leonardo Da Vinci paintings begins his technique of placing a human face on the image of divine figures.

Da Vinci’s Paintings of the 1480s

Beginning with Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings in the 1480s, he received two substantial commissions among a few smaller works. He started a third work that would be groundbreaking in how it was composed. The first of the two commissions was the image of St. Jerome in the Wilderness. It is barely started and Da Vinci never finished it, but what is present is very odd compared to other works of the time. Da Vinci placed the figure of Jerome in the middle of the composition and slightly below the line of sight. He forms a trapezoidal shape and looks in the opposite direction with his signature lion sprawled across the front of the painting. The landscape itself is slightly odd with craggy rock formations around the saint.

Among Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings that were never finished, the unfinished Adoration of the Magi s one of his most famous. It was commissioned by the Monks of San Donato a Scopeto. It is about 250cm square and involved years of preliminary sketches and drawings by Leonardo before he even started. However, he left in 1482 for Milan to win favor with Ludovico il Moro and was never able to finish the work.

The third and final painting from this period that Da Vinci worked on was the Virgin of the Rocks, a commission he took in Milan. The work itself was to cover an altar piece for the Immaculate Conception Church with the help of the de Predis brothers. The painting itself portrayed an image never found in the Bible but in the apocryphal tomes of other writers. It shows a meeting between John the Baptist as an infant in the care of an angel with Jesus’s family as they traveled to Egypt. The infant John sees and worships Jesus and shows them all kneeling before Christ in the midst of a series of rocks and swirling water. These baby pictures of Leonardo Da Vinci are famous throughout the world, largely because there are two completed versions when there are so few of his other works.

The painting by Da Vinci eventually completed was not nearly the commission he was given though. The brothers of the Immaculate Conception had request a much larger painting with upwards of 50 figures and full architectural details. Eventually the painting was finished and another version completed along side it, which Da Vinci took with him to France. However, no one was paid for their work and the church never received what they had asked for.