If the Italian Renaissance means anything to you…if Art matters…if just about anything matters to you, you’ll find examples of whatever it is in Walter Isaacson’s fine 2017 biography, Leonardo Da Vinci. Until now, I had known about and admired (usually with astonishment) Leonardo’s paintings, not realizing how few of them there actually are. Who doesn’t recognize The Last Supper, after all, and the Mona Lisa, each being worthy of a lifetime’s study? This clearly written and exhaustively researched book tells you about those two paintings and Leonardo’s others, and how his painting techniques were so unlike those of his contemporaries and so revolutionary in terms of what art can explain about the human soul.
But the book spends most of its time explaining the other things that interested Leonardo. Here are just a few…. Basic mechanics (i.e. how things work.) The nature and use of different shapes (the square, the triangle, the circle) and how they can be compared to each other (a far more difficult undertaking than you might think. Leonardo himself struggled with it all his life.) Machines (some that he actually designed, like helicopters, battle tanks and other moving vehicles, and engines of many kinds) all of which were a few hundred years ahead of their actual development. Water flow (another of Leonardo’s lifelong studies.) Air flow. Birds and how they fly. (Different birds for different methods of flight.) Many kinds of weaponry. Offensive and defensive techniques in battle. Architecture and how to build the buildings. Sculpture. Leonardo’s love life, which was substantial and deeply felt. Clothing (his own, particularly, in which he was something of a noted dandy). Theater set design. Musical instrument design. Acting (his own). Singing (his own). Fireworks. Outdoor festival design (for whichever potentate was ruling whichever city-state at the time). How animals are made (horses, particularly) How humans are made, outside and, in sometimes exhaustive, even horrifying, detail, inside…i.e. the endless detail of human musculature, of the human brain, of the human skeleton. The nervous system. The aging process. How to build canals. How to drain marshes. How to build castles so that they can most successfully be defended against artillery. How to think. How to study. How to solve problems. Leonardo’s own apparently astonishing physical beauty and politesse.
And more…much more. All in minute, specific detail in Leonardo’s famous and voluminous notebooks, written down in his strange backwards script, to be read right to left instead of the other way around (the simple explanation for which is made clear by Isaacson) with many, many accompanying drawings, sketches, outlines, designs…. On and on, all of it fascinating.
Also in this book are the many friendships and working face-to-face rivalries in Leonardo’s life (that with Michelangelo being the most famous) which were often fueled by one or the other’s being the favorite of this or that Italian ruler during their lives (the Sforzas, the Borgias, various popes, et.al., who they were and what they did). Also, there is much in Isaacson’s book about Giorgio Vasari’s famous Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, which contains a detailed (though factually flawed) biography of Leonardo that makes for fascinating reading anyway.
Isaacson’s Leonardo Da Vinci will give you all this. Isaacson’s double-columned notes, which in very small type take up sixty-six pages toward the back of the book, will also give you a lifetime of further reading, should you wish to sharpen your understanding of Leonardo and his breathtaking accomplishments.
A must read….
©2024 Terence Clarke. All rights reserved.
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Note: No Plagiarism Software, also known as Artificial Intelligence, was used in the composition of this piece.
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Thanks for the tip Terry.
On my list...
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