Leonardo Da Vinci: How to Build a Renaissance Man

I’ve been reading Walter Isaacson’s excellent book on Leonardo Da Vinci. Why Da Vinci? Da Vinci was the creator of the masterpieces The Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, and The Vitruvian Man. My favorite discovery in reading has been Madonna of The Yardwinder (see pic), in which Baby Jesus plays with the top half of a tool that looks like a cross, foreshadowing a future that is both terrifying and accepted as destiny. You can see in it all of the techniques Leonardo is known for advancing: sforzano blurring of outlines to be more true to vision than previous cartoon-like art, a sense of dynamic action captured instead of frozen and lifeless stills, psychological drama and ambiguity. Mary in particular looks simultaneously worried and serene. Look at her hand in tension between holding her child in fear and letting him go.

In the fifteenth century, before the Scientific Revolution, Leonardo also developed deep understanding that advanced the fields of anatomy, optics, mechanics, physics, math. Literally the exemplar of mastery, the reason “Renaissance Man” means wide interests and expertise. So a pretty natural subject to explore if you are interested in the heights of human ability.

I may write more than one post on him, starting with a summary of his development. How do you get to a Leonardo? 

To start with the TL;DR, my main takeaways from Leonardo’s life are:

1. The reciprocal nature of creation and learning. Leonardo studied and experimented on anatomy and optics and engineering for the sake of portraying humans accurately to the eye in realistic settings. In turn, his studies led him to inventions, scientific treatises, war machines, and canals to divert rivers. He learned in order to create, and what he learned spurred on a wide array of creations.
2. Direct experience first, building up to broad theories, but always staying rooted in observation. I think it’s relevant that Leonardo spent his childhood out in the country learning directly from nature, with little education. And then later he moved to Florence, where he was exposed to intellects and craftsmen and artists and all of the great works of ancient Greece and Rome, giving shape to what he observed directly. But–and this may be my favorite detail–Leonardo always kept a notebook with him strapped to his belt to jot down observations. His notebooks are beautiful themselves–intense mental activity captured. From Leonardo: “Although nature begins with the cause and ends with the experience, we must follow the opposite course, namely begin with the experience, and by means of it investigate the cause.”
3. The value of culture. Leonardo lived in prime Renaissance Italy. Everyone was trying to make great work, engaged in discovery, celebrating humanity. They built on each others’ accomplishments. Leonardo was particularly successful, but this is also the age of Michelangelo, whose art I like personally on a whole ‘nother level over Leonardo. The lake was stocked for achievement.

Leonardo da Vinci made numerous illustrations and sketches as part of an intensive study of human anatomy.

Setting: Leonardo’s childhood was spent in Vinci, twenty-five miles away from the city of Florence. This put him in the orbit of the intellectual, artistic, and economically vibrant city of Florence but very much out in the country. Leonardo’s life bridges the 15th and 16th centuries, putting him right in the thick of the Renaissance, when a rediscovery of ancient Greece and Rome led to a rebirth of humanism. And Leonardo’s physical location meant he could later on make actual pilgrimages to learn from specific books or statues. It’s a very direct connection.

Early learning: Leonardo’s childhood was spent in observation of nature, which would become key to his later progress. He had little schooling and prided himself on learning from direct experience, not from formal education. “His only formal learning was at an abacus school, an elementary academy that emphasized the math skills useful in commerce. It did not teach how to formulate abstract theories; the focus was on practical cases.” “[However,] one skill that was emphasized was how to draw analogies between cases, a method that Leonardo would use repeatedly in his later science. Analogies and spotting patterns became for him a rudimentary method of theorizing.” Leonardo was interested in so many things that he got easily distracted. He turned out to be good in geometry, but he never mastered the use of equations or the rudimentary algebra that existed at the time. Nor did he learn Latin, which was necessary to read that Roman scholarship that was being rediscovered. 

Apprentice period: Leonardo moved to Florence at request of his father at age 14. This put him directly in perhaps the most vibrant intellectual and artistic place on earth at the time. Many tradesmen and a culture centered around grand theatrical festivals. Leonardo goes to work at the studio of an artist named Verrochio, who was seen as a mid-level art factory. Not the master of the age, but he did give Leonardo a lot of practice. And there is some skill related to motion and anatomy, which become significant parts of what Leonardo moved forward in the world. Leonardo partakes in dissections of the human body and starts his study of optics. He also becomes greatly influenced by “On Painting” by Albieri, the first great book of art theory, which laid out rules of perspective. 

Working life: Leonardo stays with Verrochio well past when most apprentices would leave a master. He has a middling career in Florence, partly because he gets distracted and doesn’t complete work. Ultimately, he goes to Milan and starts over more successfully and rebuilds his reputation, in part by solving the problems of the local strongman Duke Ludovico Sforza. Sforza wants two things that Leonardo provides: military advantage through war machines, and a massive equestrian monument to his father as a means of propogandizing the family’s power. It is here that Leonardo starts making his great works–opportunism giving him the space to work. A decade later, Leonardo returns to Florence following the same strategy, now working with Cesare Borgia to create war machines and create art, and giving him space to work. 

Great example of the reciprocal nature of creation and study: In making the equestrian monument, Leonardo makes dissections of horses and a treatise on horse anatomy, then to engineering better horse stables. He made a trip to study one of the few ancient Roman horse sculptures to study its unprecedented sense of motion. Casting the entire sculpture in one mold instead of pieces as was the standard required devising a complete new process. And all of this resulted in a sculpture that was regarded as breathtaking (unfortunately never put into final form and destroyed by an invading army using it as target practice). So the problem of creating a particular sculpture, led to studies in a number of directions, which led to many practical applications that had nothing to do with the art, but ultimately led back to a masterpiece. 

The big thing I’m leaving out here is what Da Vinci saw as the purpose of his work and how that informed his actions. I’ll come back to that with a deeper look at his Vitruvian Man.