BY WALTER ISAACSON
5.0 out of 5 stars
A genius in multiple fields
Before reading Walter Isaacson’s biography, I knew of Leonardo Da Vinci as a great Italian painter during the renaissance period who painted the Mona Lisa, probably the most famous painting in the world. I was also aware that he made several scientific discoveries, but I would be hard pressed to name a specific discovery he made.
A most pleasing feature of the book is that, in the front pages, the primary periods of Leonardo’s life were summarized, with detailed dates, accompanied by reproductions of his paintings. Significant historical events are also noted beside the timelines, such as when Columbus sailed to the New World, when Michelangelo finished painting the Sistine Chapel etc. These few pages greatly enhance the attractiveness of the book.
Leonardo became an apprentice in the painter Verrocchio’s studio in Florence around 1468. Teacher and student collaborated in some paintings. In the painting “Baptism of Christ”, the angel painted by Leonardo was so superior that it was said that Verrocchio threw down his brush and never painted again.
Isaacson went on to describe in great detail several other paintings: The Annunciation, several Madonnas, Virgin of the Rocks. There is a whole chapter on The Last Super. He pointed out several distinct characteristics of Leonardo’s art:
● The ability to deploy light and shade in ways that would better produce the illusion of three-dimensional volume on a two-dimensional surface.
● The effect of light reflection, eyes conveying inner thoughts, sense of motion.
● He liked to rely on shadows, rather than contour lines, to define the shape of most objects.
This stemmed from an insight that he derived from observation that there was no such thing in nature as a precisely visible outline or border to an object.
Isaacson described Leonardo’s work on science. It was astonishing that, by being relentlessly curious - observing the flight of birds, water flowing into a bowl etc., Leonardo had anticipated: (1) Galileo’s principle of relativity as well as Newton’s law of action and reaction; (2) Bernoulli’s principle: when air (or any fluid) flows faster, it exerts less pressure.
Leonardo’s work on anatomy was equally amazing, if not more so. He dissected around 30 bodies, with hundreds of diagrams depicting what he discovered.
Unfortunately, Leonardo never prepared his findings for publication. He did not declare a painting finished or complete, and tended to come back to it, often years later. A case in point: he worked on Mona Lisa for sixteen years. He also left some major paintings unfinished, such as the Battle of Angbiari and Adoration of the Magi.
Perhaps intentionally to taunt the patience of the reader, the chapter on Mona Lisa was placed almost toward the end of the book. Isaacson analyzed different parts of the painting in detail: the eyes, the smile, the pupil, the background landscape. He declared that “Lisa sitting on her balcony against the backdrop of geological cons is Leonardo’s profound meditation on what it means to be human.” He ended the chapter with a most memorable sentence: “And what about all of the scholars and critics over the years who despaired that Leonardo squandered too much time immersed in studying optics and anatomy and the patterns of the cosmos? The Mona Lisa answers them with a smile.”
An added bonus for the reader is the knowledge that Leonardo Di Vinci knew both Niccolo Machiavelli and Michelangelo. When Leonardo worked as a military engineer for Cesare Borgia, Duke of Valentinois and an illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI, he and Machiavelli were together in the winter of 1502-03 in a town named Imola. (It should be mentioned that Leonardo’s military gadgets and designs existed in sketches in notebooks only and had not become reality.) As for Michelangelo, their personalities were opposite and they despised each other. “Leonardo was handsome, urbane, eloquent and dandyishly well dressed. In contrast, Michelangelo was intense, disheveled and irascible”, according to Michelangelo biographer Martin Gayford. “My delight is melancholy,” Michelangelo once confessed.
Another unexpected addition to my knowledge is that Amerigo Vespucci, the third person to make the voyage across the Atlantic, landing in what is now Brazil, correctly reported to his Florentine patrons that he had “arrived at a new land which for many reasons…. we observed to be a continent.” His correct surmise led to its being named America, after him. I wonder whether this is what is taught in schools.
Leonardo Di Vinci died on May 2, 1519, in France, less than three weeks after he turned sixty-seven. King Francis I was holding him in his hands when Leonardo died. He had indeed realized what he wrote in his notebook: "As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death."
The radiant angel on the far left in the painting Baptism of Christ was painted by Leonardo. It so awed Verrocchio that Verrocchio “resolved never again to touch a brush.”
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Placed 3rd among 1944 reviews as of 4/6/23
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