The art of Leonardo da Vinci, like his character, is full of conflicting tendencies and apparent contradictions. His tireless curiosity, combined with his deep feeling for all living things, led him as a scientist to explore the entire range of natural phenomena, while at the same time a fantastic creative imagination caused him as an artist to transform the results of his scientific researches in a thousand ways. These two elements of his nature alternated throughout his life and explain his restless changes of occupation and the fact that he never devoted himself exclusively to painting for very long at a time. Although in his versatility and scientific interest he is usually regarded as the quintessence of the man of the renaissance, yet some of the products of his tortured imagination are a direct reminder of the middle ages. Ever in his artistic output conflicting tendencies are apparent in the "Last Supper" he reaches the peak of his renaissance classicism, whereas in other works, such as the Anghiari cartoon, his sense of restless movement dearly foreshadows the baroque. Finally, in the "Deluge" drawings, he produces works which are completely unrelated to European art and suggest that of the Far East.
This passage about Leonardo da Vinci puts the emphasis on ____.
his scientific activities rather than on his artistic ones
his versatility and the apparently conflicting elements in his works
the masterly execution of his "Last Supper" painting
how medieval influences are apparent in all his paintings
how fully representative he was of the renaissance spirit of Italy in his age
The writer of this passage offers an explanation as to why da Vinci _____.
fills his pictures with so much restless movement
preferred scientific exploration to creative painting
had to keep his scientific activities quite separate from his creative ones
chose to paint the "Last Supper" in the high renaissance style
did not concentrate exclusively on his art for any long period of time
It is clear from this passage that the writer does not share the commonly held view that da Vinci ____.
was a lonely, isolated figure who did not share in the activities of his own age
was the greatest artist of the renaissance
should have devoted himself exclusively to his artistic activities
is the embodiment the typical renaissance man
had a creative imagination but it was stifled by his scientific curiosity