Source: https://www.history.com/topics/renaissance/leonardo-da-vinci

Anoushka Kashyap

OP. Jindal Global University

Masters Student

Leonardo da Vinci: An Artist or something more?

Introduction

Leonardo da Vinci continues to remain famous world-wide for his popular artworks like ‘The Mona Lisa’ and ‘The Last Supper’ for example. An overlooked but a critical work of Leonardo da Vinci was his scientific knowledge and his interest in ‘science’, his wish that his works got published and his ‘secret notebooks’ wherein he wrote about things that made him curious and drew his works or ideas. The scholars I am referring to for my essay, talk about how he was different from Michaelangelo, Galileo and his contemporaries.  In my essay, I will give my views after reading the various scholars articles and will talk about the scholar’s findings and readings about Leonardo da Vinci that has not been the prime focus of his career for instance, about his secret notebooks, his unpublished works and how he became a ‘Universal man’ since the Renaissance Ages as he was great not only in artistic works but was curious about other inventions at the time period of ‘The Renaissance’. (Parrott-Sheffer) (Bambach) (Cattolica)

Leonardo da Vinci was a famous artist and a sculptor of the Renaissance Ages whose works continue to astonish many people around the world. For example, his paintings like Mona Lisa and Last Supper attract many tourists and people from around the world to ‘gaze with amaze’. He was regarded as a “mystique” ~ David Carrier and Vasari- a modern day scholar was amazed by Vinci & called him a “magician”. Surprisingly, he is remembered today also for his incomplete paintings. He painted less paintings & Last Supper was not famous at that time due to his usage of ‘fresco style’. (Carrier) (Veltman) (Editors)

Early Life and Education

He was born in Italy in a town called as ‘Vinci’ in Tuscany. He is regarded with many job titles like ‘painter, sculptor, scientist and an architect’. He was regarded as “Renaissance Man” ~History.com Editors. He wrote many secret notebooks containing inventions, paintings and his observations about the daily things he witnessed in his life that seemed peculiar to him. He was trained in mechanical arts, but it is surprising that he never received any formal education and was mostly self-educated. Though, he was educated in Florence by a painter Andrea del Verrocchio and he spent most of his time in Milan. He has also been regarded as a great painter from the Renaissance Period & founder of Higher Renaissance. (Clark) (Science) (Wikipedia, Leonardo da Vinci)

His famous paintings like Mona Lisa and Last Supper still survive till today in The Louvre Museum in Paris in France and in a Church in Milan called as Santa Maria delle Grazie and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. He was born out of a wedlock to Ser Piero and Caterina in 1452 and while growing up, “he had access to scholarly texts owned by family and friends” ~ Museum of Science. His father sent him to Florence to a workshop by Andrea del Verrocchio when he was fifteen years old. (B. Editors) (convention) (Britannica)

He was talented by birth in the art of painting and his father recognized his talent and had sent him to the workshop in Florence. The scientific inventions he wrote about in his secret notebooks were “centuries ahead of their time”~ Brittanica. Scholar and writer David Carrier in his article ‘Leonardo and Leonardo da Vinci’ argued how Leonardo da Vinci was different from the scientists in terms of his ‘curiosity’ and ‘knowledge’ about science and technology. “While many visual artists have taken a casual interest in science”~ David Carrier  but Leonardo Vinci was the only painter who devoted much of his time to studying about science. (archives) (museum)

Understanding Leonardo da Vinci from the lens of scholars

David Carrier argued that how he was more than an artist as he was able to think more differently than the other artists of his times like Michelangelo and Raphael who were equally exemplary artists who drew famous paintings like ‘The School of Athens’ and constructed ‘St. Peter’s Basilica’. But, the difference was that Vinci went beyond their thinking and it is scholars like Giorgio Vasari, Sigmund Freud and Kenneth Clark who were fascinated by his works. (Pulimood) (britannica)

It is intriguing and interesting to know that despite being a good painter, Vinci had scientific curiosity that he wrote in his secret notebooks that provide today as an evidence of his research and knowledge. Hence why, scholars like Vasari have been extremely flabbergasted by Vinci’s thinking and ideas about science. For example, Vasari showed his appreciation of Vinci’s ideas by saying, “He was continually making models and designs to show men how to move mountains with ease... and by means of levers, windlasses, and screws, he showed the way to raise and draw great weights... and of these ideas and labours many drawings may be seen... I myself have seen not a few.”~ Giorgio Vasari

Vasari was so fascinated by Vinci that he called him a “magician” saying that he created some sort of a magic and he was very different from other artists of his time as he said that he has never seen such things himself that Vinci had written about. Some scholars and psychologists like Sigmund Freud regarded Leonardo Vinci as having a keen interest and talent in both ‘art and science’ which is seen as a rare sight because most people have either of the talents as either they are creative or factual, but Vinci had both and this could be the reason why he is still remembered today and not the others.

Sigmund Freud called him to be having interests in “rich fantasy life”. ~ Sigmund Freud and these scholars found that he was famous in his times during the fifteenth century for his ‘incomplete works’. Surprisingly, many scholars found that he made a small number of works and paintings throughout his life. For example, his famous painting known as The Last Supper did not gain any popularity during the time it was painted due to the usage of a new form of style known as ‘fresco’ style.

He also had rivalries with some contemporaries like Michelangelo argues David Carrier because Leonardo painted ‘The Battle of Anghiari’, in Council Hall in Florence and it hardly survives in forms of some copies. I felt after reading about Leonardo Vinci as per Carrier’s findings and arguments that he believed in fantasy and did not live in reality much because he was able to envision many things about science and art but only few of his works remain till today. (renaissance.com)

He wrote and thought about airplanes that he called ‘flying machines’ that could not compete to that of the Wright Brother’s as Vinci’s model could not get off the ground. He was a great and a keen observer of the world and he noticed everything he encountered on a daily basis. He was not successful in making many of his illusions into reality because of his lack of knowledge in mathematics argues Carrier. (Chao-Fong)

I agree with scholar David Carrier in talking about Leonardo da Vinci as he was a “mystique” and he fantasised a lot of things and people. It cannot be his fault entirely because of his works that did not work out as expected because during his times there was not any “experimental science” ~ David Carrier

“One reason that Leonardo da Vinci deserves attention is that his art and scientific investigations are intrinsically fascinating. His drawings and paintings attract our attention, cialist scholars are interested in his studies of experimentation and technology.” ~ David Carrier

An another scholar whose article I analysed to understand Leonardo da Vinci is Kim H. Veltman. “Some persons are so famous, one would think that there could be little more to say about them.”~ Kim H. Veltman I think that there couldn’t have been a better way of describing about Leonardo da Vinci as no matter how much we try to talk about him and study about him, it feels too less.

Vinci carried with him small notebooks in his pockets with him wherever he went which is not surprising as he was an artist and usually even today the artists have a habit of carrying their drawing notebooks with them as whenever they find something peculiar or beautiful they sit down and start drawing. Kim Veltman says that he used to have two types of sections in his notebook wherein one “…spoke about the world of nature, animals and human beings. This eventually became the collection at Windsor. “and the other was focused on the man-made world: machines, fortifications, inventions, etc. This is essentially the Codice Atlantico today.” Kim H. Veltman

Vinci was very interested in getting his works published but he faced a problem which was that he was born before Gutenberg invented Printing Press and “His notes had tens of thousands of drawings, ranging from tiny rough sketches to very carefully composed presentation drawing.” The main issue was that the printing technologies also were not able to print heavy-duty items like that of Vinci’s works which had many tiny drawings and so on.

When he passed away then his works started to get organised to some extent and went to different places like to Madrid and Milan as his student Francesco Melzi also soon passed away as he was old. Kim Veltman spoke about his scholarships to some extent and wrote about his artworks and knowledge about technology. Vinci was known as a “Universal Man”. “The past century has revealed that Leonardo owed much to (a) classical and medieval sources, (b) artist-engineers in the tradition of Brunelleschi and (c) contemporary artist-engineers such as Francesco di Giorgio Martini.”

The more I read about Vinci the more surprised I am and the more respect I gain for him because after reading the article of Paul C. Vitz and Arnold B. Glimcher and review by Virginia Pitts Rembert titled ‘Modern Art and Modern Science: The Parallel Analysis of Vision by Paul C. Vitz and Arnold B. Glimcher’, they speak about how Emmanuel Winternitz, founder and curator since 1942 of the Department of Musical Instruments at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts was the first person to find out about music in Vinci’s notebooks. The authors say that he found that there are sketches and things written about music which are scattered and incomplete which I feel that makes any person analysing Vinci’s written works difficult to interpret. (Beck) (Glimcher)

They speak about the “invention of the viola organista”, a stringed instrument with keyboard in which the strings were to be vibrated mechanically, either by a bow moving continuously backwards and forwards or by a friction wheel.” So, they speak about the types of instruments about which Vinci drew sketches of and wrote about in his notebooks like the other set of sketches were on ‘drums’.

The last scholar whose article I have read to interpret his understandings about Vinci is Daniel J. Jones in his article titled ‘Leonardo da Vinci--Pioneer Geologist’. He says that he was a geologist along with being many other things which is less known though mentioned in his notebooks. “In 1952, on the 500th anniversary of the birth of Da Vinci, scientists from many parts of the world gathered at Illinois Southern University to acclaim his genius, and to honour him for his discoveries in virtually all the sciences.”~ Daniel J, Jones (Jones)

I got to know that despite the many great titles Vinci was also a geologist who wrote about shells and study of rocks and his knowledge has been regarded as phenomenal by scientists from around the world and hence they paid him the tribute. Now, I can understand why Vinci is so famous because he was many things unlike other artists of his times as he could think beyond being a painter and he observed his daily life and surroundings very carefully and he wrote everything in his secret notebooks.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I strongly felt that Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, sculptor, architect, geologist and many more things that people today are still unaware of and many scholars are still finding new things about him and most of the scholars whose views I have read about Vinci have highly praised him and it can concluded that he was a “mystique” and “magician” who was able to see things from a different lens in comparison to his other contemporary artists like Michelangelo and Raphael. There are some famous paintings of Michelangelo in the Louvre Museum along with Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, but millions of tourists visit the museum to see only The Mona Lisa. 

References

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