Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Roger Basseg.
Speaker 2: And I'm Gillian Woodward. Spotlight uses a special English method
Speaker 2: of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
Speaker 2: matter where in the world they live.
Speaker 1: Imagine a painting. A young, brown haired woman peers out
Speaker 1: at us. Her expression is subtle. It is difficult to
Speaker 1: tell if she is smiling or not. Behind her is
Speaker 1: a foggy land filled with hills and mountains. Like the
Speaker 1: woman's smile, these landforms are unclear. They do not seem
Speaker 1: to fit in any one place on this earth. They
Speaker 1: could just as well belong in a dream. The background
Speaker 1: of this painting makes the woman even more mysterious. She
Speaker 1: looks out from the painting as if she has a
Speaker 1: secret to tell.
Speaker 2: This is the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. It
Speaker 2: is one of the most famous pieces in all of
Speaker 2: Western art. Though mostly known for his paintings, Leonardo's interests
Speaker 2: included everything from the human body to engineering. These interests
Speaker 2: were not always useful. He did not gain much from
Speaker 2: his interest in many different subjects, but these diverse interests
Speaker 2: made him one of the most important talents the world
Speaker 2: has ever known. To day's spotlight is on Leonardo da Vinci.
Speaker 1: Leonardo was born in fourteen fifty two in Vinci, near
Speaker 1: the Italian city of Florence. He was his mother's firstborn son,
Speaker 1: bo Ud. His birth was not considered legitimate. His father
Speaker 1: and mother were not married, nor would they ever be.
Speaker 1: Leonardo would not get the same rights as his brothers,
Speaker 1: who were from his father's wife. He would not be
Speaker 1: part of the family business.
Speaker 2: This may have saved Leonardo's work. The family's business in
Speaker 2: law and property made the family wealthy, but it would
Speaker 2: not have let him follow his interests. Even at a
Speaker 2: young age, Leonardo had many of these. He watched birds
Speaker 2: to understand how they flew. He painted, He made things
Speaker 2: out of sticky clay. He studied how water flows in
Speaker 2: streams and rivers. He observed how the muscles of horses
Speaker 2: worked together to create movement.
Speaker 1: When he was twelve, Leonardo moved to Florence, a center
Speaker 1: of art. In learning, his father got him a chance
Speaker 1: to learn with Andreo de Verroccio, a well known artist.
Speaker 1: This special kind of schooling fit Leonardo well. He did
Speaker 1: not learn well from books. Verruccio would teach Leonardo how
Speaker 1: to paint. He would give the boy real experience and
Speaker 1: train him as a craftsman an artist.
Speaker 2: But Verruccio taught Leonardo more than just painting. He taught
Speaker 2: the young man how to observe. He believed a person
Speaker 2: needed to understand something in order to paint it. It
Speaker 2: was not enough just to paint a person. You needed
Speaker 2: to understand how the body moved. You needed to understand
Speaker 2: the relationship between light and darkness. Verruccio and his students
Speaker 2: studied life to make their paintings appear more life like.
Speaker 1: Leonardo took this teaching to heart. His note books collected
Speaker 1: at the end of his life show a huge array
Speaker 1: of interests. Some contain paintings of animals and plants he
Speaker 1: found in the city. Others show his interest in the
Speaker 1: human body. He even cut up several dead bodies to
Speaker 1: show how bones and muscles connected and to know the
Speaker 1: internal parts of the body. The paintings and drawings he
Speaker 1: made of these bodies are very true to life. His
Speaker 1: studies gave him a better understanding of how and why
Speaker 1: people moved.
Speaker 2: By the time he was twenty, most people in Florence
Speaker 2: recognized that Leonardo was a great artist in his own right.
Speaker 2: He opened up his own workshop he began making his
Speaker 2: own paintings. He would move many times to work in
Speaker 2: different cities, but this workshop marked the beginning of Leonardo's
Speaker 2: most famous paintings.
Speaker 1: One of the most famous of these paintings is The
Speaker 1: Last Supper. This painting shows a story from the Christian Bible.
Speaker 1: In this story, Jesus, who Christians believe is the son
Speaker 1: of God, invites his friends to a meal. He tells
Speaker 1: his friends that he is going to die the next day.
Speaker 1: But Jesus knows how these men will act. He even
Speaker 1: knows the man who will betray him. But he forgives
Speaker 1: them and tells them they will be saved by trusting him.
Speaker 2: This is a very important story for Christians. It describes
Speaker 2: a tradition called communion. It shows them that their God
Speaker 2: is a loving God for all people.
Speaker 1: Leonardo's painting tries to show all of this in a
Speaker 1: single image. Jesus sits in the very center of the painting.
Speaker 1: His face is calm, he has accepted what is going
Speaker 1: to happen to him. But his friends are anything but calm.
Speaker 1: Each of them is frozen in a different state of emotion,
Speaker 1: some show anger, some fear. One named Judas seems guilty.
Speaker 1: Leonardo created their faces using real people in the city
Speaker 1: as his models. This gives the painting a lifelike quality
Speaker 1: that was shocking at the time. Kenneth Clark was a
Speaker 1: British historian.
Speaker 3: He said, you cannot look long at the Last Supper
Speaker 3: before you stop thinking about it as a painting, you
Speaker 3: start speaking about it like theater.
Speaker 2: Leonardo saw no real difference between science and art. He
Speaker 2: made medical discoveries while he studied. For his paintings, he
Speaker 2: painted ideas that appeared to be plans for inventions. His
Speaker 2: interests were deep. He followed these interests wherever they took him.
Speaker 2: These scientific interests were important for his inner process of
Speaker 2: creating art.
Speaker 1: But Leonardo was sometimes difficult to work with. He was
Speaker 1: interested in almost everything, but he had a hard time
Speaker 1: finishing his work. He left many of his great paintings
Speaker 1: half done. Many he did not consider finished, even when
Speaker 1: most people would. Leonardo worked on the Mona Lisa itself
Speaker 1: for sixteen years. Even then he did not consider it done.
Speaker 1: Ludovico Svorza was the ruler of Milan, a kingdom in
Speaker 1: modern day Italy. He paid Leonardo to paint the Last supper.
Speaker 1: Once Savartza protested his timeliness, Leonardo told him.
Speaker 4: Men of great talent sometimes do the most when they
Speaker 4: work the least. Their minds are occupied with it ideas
Speaker 4: and making them perfect. Afterward, they give these ideas form.
Speaker 2: Leonardo's talents often seemed aimless. He did not always produce
Speaker 2: what others wanted from him, but his interest in observing
Speaker 2: everything around him led him to projects outside the world
Speaker 2: of art. When he was in Milan, he designed new
Speaker 2: water pipes for the city. He designed a machine to
Speaker 2: take water out of a wetland. On another occasion, he
Speaker 2: created machines for theater. His notebooks are full of inventions
Speaker 2: like flying machines, futuristic weapons, and even a car. Many
Speaker 2: of these inventions were never built. Some were too modern
Speaker 2: for their time. They were not realistic, but Leonardo was
Speaker 2: the first person to think of them. Walter Isaacson hes
Speaker 2: a history writer, in his book on Leonardo da Vinci,
Speaker 2: he said.
Speaker 3: The things Leonardo saw for the future often happened. It
Speaker 3: took a few centuries. Machines to breathe under the water,
Speaker 3: flying machines and helicopters now exist, Pumps now empty, wetlands
Speaker 3: sometimes dreams lead to reality.
Speaker 1: Leonardo da Vinci died in fifteen nineteen. He was sixty
Speaker 1: seven years old. Today, art historians consider him one of
Speaker 1: the most important painters in history. He invented hundreds of
Speaker 1: machines and explored ideas others would consider impossible. In his lifetime,
Speaker 1: he was known for the beauty of his work. Today
Speaker 1: we also recognize him for the beauty of his mind.
Speaker 1: It was a mind that imagined w wildly, that explored
Speaker 1: everything it touched. It was a mind that has led
Speaker 1: some historians to call him the most interested man in
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 2: Leonardo was a master of many areas. Is this mastery
Speaker 2: of so many different subjects still possible for someone today?
Speaker 2: You can leave a comment on our website at www
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Speaker 2: through our free official Spotlight English app.
Speaker 1: The writer and producer of this program was Dan Chrisman.
Speaker 1: The voices you heard were from the United States and
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted for this program
Speaker 1: and voiced by Spotlight. This program is called Leonardo da Vinci,
Speaker 1: the most interested man in the world.
Speaker 2: We hope you can join us again for the next
Speaker 2: Spotlight program. Good Bye,