leonardo da vinci, michelangelo and raphael.

the name leonardo, michelangelo and raphael actually reminded me of ninja turtles rather than the great painters back in the fifteen hundred. my curiousity got hold of me so i googled it and to my surprise the creators of teenage mutant ninja turtles characters indeed named them after all these painters. anyway i wasnt going to blog about TMNT today, i am going to blog about all these great painters instead. i used to hear ppl say that they produced very good paintings but i never actually bothered to take notice of them. i got a thing for culture and history. i used to watch discovery channel for hours. then now there's history channel. wohoo. i might bore my whole family out if i was to hold on to the remote control. hehe. now i hardly watch tv anymore.

when i mention leonardo da vinci, u think of mona lisa. isnt that typical? i had in my mind monalisa is the greatest painting of all. i saw gazilions of duplicates of monalisa and i think to myself 'what an ugly painting. maybe the real one looks better.' so here's the real one


i cant really had a closer or longer look at it because everyone were pushing and ushering me out. so there i was for 15 seconds and that was it. i found it no difference with the duplicates but i was surprise at how small and old the painting was. my perception still remained the same - it is ugly. LOL!


here's another clearer picture for you to see the 'uniqueness' of the painting.

i cant deny the fact that leonardo was really a great painter.


take for example st john the baptist. the way he painted it looked really natural and real. one thing when i looked at this and monalisa, leonardo's painting always gave me the creep. both paintings gave me the expression of darkness, mysterious and if i want to go to the extreme, then i would say evil. LOL! ok i am just a layman, not a profesional in this field. so u can start mocking me now. haha. just my point of view. both paintings can be found in louvre.


here's another painting we should not forget the famous last supper by leonardo da vinci. it is in milan. a mural painting. this piece of artwork is not as easy as u can access to monalisa if u wish to see it. u need to booked 3 months ahead. the painting have really deteriorated badly over the years. u might wanna goggled to read about it. it is kind of interesting. again, mysterious painting by leonardo, so there's a lot of theories out there to interpret his painting. i myself didnt get to see the real thing because of the booking we need to do.

do you ever wonder why there are so many great painters out there but leonardo da vinci manage to stand out among them? it was because not only he was a painter, he was also a scientist, mathematician, anatomist, engineer, sculptor, etc. how can he not be unique when he was everything. LOL!!

another great painter who is unique was michelangelo. i prefer michelangelo artwork more compare to leonardo's. to name a few of his work was the statue of david, pieta, the ceiling of sistine chapel and etc.


i m sure everyone has at least come across this painting. i was very eager to see this piece of art but when i saw the real thing, i was surprise because it was on the ceiling. it was part of a fresco of the scene of genesis. i expected it to be a piece of its own with a frame hanging on the wall. michelangelo really left me in awe with the whole sistine chapel ceiling full with his painting.


this is illegal. i dunno if u can spot the creation of adam here or not. hehe. we are not suppose to take any picture in sistine chapel because it can deteriorate the paintings i think. the security inside the chapel were quite tight but we manage to take a picture of it. we cant really see all the paintings properly because there's so many people in there and all the paintings were so far away. lol.

michelangelo also design the st peter's basilica dome.


awesome work. really beautiful.


a closeup. are u in awe already? hehe.


the dome from the outside. the right is THE DOME. LOL!! the left was also a dome but not the one i am focusing here.


pieta. this is also a very fine work of sculpting. the thing look so real, so detailly sculptured. anyway when i 1st saw this sculpture i find it very weird. the 'boy' the women is holding were out of proportion. i dunno if i should mention the 'boy' as man or not because he had the body of a boy but he had the face of a man with a beard. michelangelo design the sculpture to be out of proportion and i lazy to elaborate the reason. so googled it. hehe

next is a painter call rapheal. not so famous compare to leonardo and michelangelo. i think his work were alright but the reason i wanna mention him is because he was buried in pantheon. i was actually standing in pantheon feeling so freaking bored and not realizing that i m standing beside his tomb. i had no idea the pantheon is where all the famous ppl's tombs were. LOL. pantheon to me, was just a building with a big hole in the middle of its roof. LOL!!!!


that is raphael's tomb on the right.


for a closer look. this is how it really looks like with the statue of madonna there. not the singer madonna..duh~. LOL!! there's a reason behind the statue of madonna there on raphael's tomb. anything do to with madonna, raphael's name will be there. hehe. interesting stuff. googled it for more info. i m lazy to type as you know history IS very long winding. LOL!!