Leonardo da Vinci questions 1. As an apprentice, Leonardo worked on a number of paintings with others. How do experts recognize his work in “Tobias and the Angel”?

2. What is “chiaroscuro”?

3. What is the only work of da Vinci’s in an American museum? (Ginevra) Who was she?

4. What is wrong with da Vinci’s painting of The Last Supper?

5. What did Leonardo do for Duke Lodovica Sforza, besides painting?

6. What example was given of the great power of the Medici?

7. How did Leonardo write most of his journals and notebooks? Why do you think he did this

2. Chiaroscuro, in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achieve a sense of volume in modelling three-dimensional objects and figures.

3. When it came time to plan an elaborate wedding ceremony for his son, according to National Gallery of Art curator David Alan Brown, he couldn't do so without selling one of the family's many artistic treasures: Leonardo da Vinci's “Ginevra de' Benci,” a 15th-century portrait that museum curators had eyed for years.

Ginevra de' Benci, a well-known young Florentine woman, is universally considered to be the portrait's sitter. Leonardo painted the portrait in Florence between 1474 and 1478, possibly to commemorate Ginevra's marriage to Luigi di Bernardo Niccolini at the age of 16. More likely, it commemorates the engagement.

4. "Last Supper" is a failed experiment.

The experiment proved unsuccessful, however, because the paint did not adhere properly and began to flake away only a few decades after the work was finished.

5. The Duke kept Leonardo busy painting and sculpting and designing elaborate court festivals, but he also put Leonardo to work designing weapons, buildings and machinery.

7. Da Vinci is believed to have started recording his thoughts in notebooks during the 1480s while he was a military and naval engineer for the Duke of Milan. The writing included in the notebooks was produced in 16th-century Italian “mirror-writing,” which one reads right to left.

He was hiding his scientific ideas from the powerful Roman Catholic Church, whose teachings sometimes disagreed with what Leonardo observed. He was trying to prevent smudging: writing left handed from left to right was messy, the ink just put down would smear as his hand moved across it.