Walter Isaacson’s huge biography Leonardo
da
Vinci (Simon & Schuster,
2017, 624 pages, $35.00/16.99/14.88)
big, thick, heavy, beautifully illustrated provides
a wonderful journey through
the life, mind, and works of a genius who lived more than 400 years
ago, but whose creativity, versatility, and imagination rebound
through the ages to still affect our sensibilities today. Isaacson,
whose previous biography of
Einstein I also read and reviewed, stands as one of the major public
intellectuals in America. Because he, himself, approaches his
subjects with such appreciation and wonder, his books serve to open
the minds of their readers, making the subjects accessible to
ordinary folks.
Was Leonardo truly the greatest genius of all time, or did he happen
to come along when all the conditions were right for a single person
to capture and embody huge chunks of the world’s knowledge and
experience? Science, math, engineering, art, sculpture, and
technology were all encompassed in his studies and interests. His
observational skills were without peer. He has obsessive about
following through on questions that occurred to him, for instance,
insisting on a comprehensive knowledge of anatomy to build invisible
skeletons under the skins and clothing of his paintings.
Leonardo, born in Vinci, a town near Florence, Italy in 1452, the
illegitimate son of notary Piero da Vinci, who was able to help
promote his artistic efforts despite never having legitimated his
brilliant son Leonardo, was apprenticed to an artist in Florence
where he soon distinguished himself as a master of perspective,
color, and drafting. Throughout his long and illustrious career,
Leonardo moved restlessly from Florence to Milan to Rome, and
eventually to France, where he spent his last years attached to King
Francis I and died in 1519. Leonardo is renowned for his great
paintings The Mona Lisa and The Last Supper as well
others. Beyond painting, his achievements and ideas in engineering,
technology, anatomy, military science, mathematics and further were
recorded in his journals. Many of his discoveries and speculations
were lost for hundreds of years, because he neglected to publish his
writings and drawings, while abandoning or procrastinating in
completing many of his most famous paintings. Despite this, on his
death he was recognized throughout Europe as one of history’s
greatest geniuses, a reputation which has only become brighter
through the ages.
Mona Lisa
If you’re a person who goes to museums or enjoys paintings and
painting, you’ll never look at a canvas or drawing with the same
perspective (pun intended) after reading Isaacson’s chapter on the
“Science of Art,” which explores Leondardo’s deep and
inter-related developing ideas spreading far beyond art into the
realms of science and math. “Just as he blurred the boundaries
between art and science, he did so to the boundaries between reality
and fantasy, between experience and mystery, between objects and
their surroundings.” (270) Thus the sciences become metaphysical,
moving into the space where observation interacts with belief and
knowledge.
Isaacson makes the discovery, search, acquisition, and verification
of Leonardo’s work into exciting detective stories, bringing the
tales into the present day while remaining thoroughly in the 15th
and 16th centuries. Names like Bernard Berenson and
Kenneth Clark vie with Sforza and Ludivico as important in the
Leonardo story, giving the whole book a shade of a contemporary
thriller without the boiler plate of Dan Brown. A hint of a Mona Lisa
smile flits around Isaacson’s mind as he weaves the story of how
art, technology, and science first combined in Leonardo’s ceaseless
search for more remains alive with the search for the Master. The
chapter on La Bella Principessa, a previously unattributed
drawing, provides as good detective writing as any novel while its
owner covers Europe and the U.S. to confirm the insight which had
first prompted him to purchase the piece.
Leonardo's Drawings
Leonardo’s intellectual development from being a believer in
experience as the best teacher to combining his own current
experience with traditions and knowledge handed down from antiquity
in writing, architecture, mathematics, science, optics, engineering,
sculpture, and art help him create the qualities that so characterize
the Renaissance as re-birth and new birth of how to know. Much of
Leonardo’s writing becomes a treatise on ways of knowing. Isaacson
delights in exploring Leonardo’s mind through his almost limitless
works distributed worldwide to libraries, museums, and private
collectors. Leonardo’s experiments with using shadows, colors,
shapes as well as his thought experiences recounted with words and
illustrations suggest the breadth and intensity of his quest. “Just
as he blurred the boundaries between art and science, he did so to
the boundaries between reality and fantasy, between experience and
mystery, between objects and their surroundings.” (270) Thus the
sciences become metaphysical, moving into the space where observation
interacts with belief and knowledge.
Walter Isaacson
Walter
Isaacson, University Professor of History at Tulane, has been CEO of
the Aspen Institute, chairman of CNN, and editor of Time magazine. He
is the author of Leonardo da Vinci; Steve Jobs; Einstein: His Life
and Universe; Benjamin Franklin: An American Life; and Kissinger: A
Biography. He is also the coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and
the World They Made. In Leonardo da Vinci, he
emerges as a benevolent character himself, taking joy in his own
searches as he seeks to fathom the genius of this exceptional
character in human history.
Perhaps
no artist, no character, in history has left so much data while
remaining such
an enigma. Yet, as Isaacson brings his narrative to a close, Leonardo
becomes increasingly difficult to encompass. His passions, his
intelligence, his ceaseless questioning followed by obsessive studies
helped
lead him to some understanding of the answers he sought leaving
those
viewing his work with a certain frustration. While giving so much,
Leonardo, like his most famous painting, holds himself slightly
aloof, leaving uncertainties for us to contemplate for eternity.
Isaacson
challenges the reader. In his discussion of Leonardo’s thoughts
about how water flows and eddies, he interrupts the discussions to
say, “Try noticing all that when you next fill a sink,” (432)
stopping the reader to consider staring deeply into the bowl of water
after shaving. His own delight at exploring Leonardo’s world, his
insatiable curiosity and his ability to illustrate revelations
clearly and precisely intrigue and elevate the author’s own
thinking. Isaacson’s
books on
Leonardo, Franklin, Einstein, and Jobs detail the exploration of the
world through the eyes of geniuses most of us can’t fathom
ourselves, let alone illuminate for the thoughtful reader. I
bought my own copy of Leonardo da
Vinci and give it my highest recommendation.
Some
thoughts on how to read this book: I bought Leonardo
di Vinci as a hardback book on
the recommendation of a commentator
who mentioned the
quality of the photographs, which are very good. However, if I were
to purchase it again, however,
I would buy it as a Kindle book, even though, at present, the Kindle
version is more expensive than the hardback.
I found it advantageous to access the largest image available
on Google Images
using my
browser to focus in on small details as
I read. Many of the details Isaacson
writes about emerge on such close attention. It would be better
still, to be able to examine the originals in detail.
Unfortunately…..
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