leonardo da vinci walter isaacson goodreads

He worked on the Mona Lisa for many, many years constantly adding to it a bit at a time. Reading this I have to believe that he had ADHD! He rarely finished things. He discovered how the eye sees, how images enter the eye to the brain. He identified parts of the heart, the musculature of the body, and the face, which Isaacson attributes to developing daVinci's skill at painting Mona Lisa's smile. He did many dissections of people, horses, and pigs. He saw himself as a scientist, an architect, a city planner, etc., etc.ĭaVinci was constantly developing through his experiments that contributed to science and helped his art. He was no good at math but his sense of geometry was amazing. They didn't like each other, what a shame too, can you imagine the collaboration? One thing they shared was the difficulty at times to pick up a brush, Michaelangelo because he saw himself as a sculptor and daVinci because of his huge curiosity and love of science. It's interesting that this was the same time as Michaelangelo who was less than 25 years his junior and had a very opposite personality. I was surprised to learn that artists at the time didn't sign their work! That leaves a mystery surrounding much of the art he and others produced. I learned so much about him and other artists too. Amazingly, being the bastard son, he had no formal education like his half-siblings. He always planned to do that, he mentions it in his copious notes of which many have survived, but no publications that could be shared with many others who would pick up his work. Part of that was entirely his fault because he didn't publish his findings. He made amazing scientific discoveries that wouldn't be replicated for centuries. I knew Leonardo da Vinci's reputation for being a genius and I've seen many prints of his work but I had no idea just how amazing he was across so many disciplines. The author did a terrific addendum but I'm really glad he didn't read this book, he had a bit of a lispy sound. The narrator was wonderful and had all the right pronunciations of the Italian and French names and words, whether scientific or artistic. I listened to this on audio but sometimes I wish it had been an e-book.

Leonardo da vinci walter isaacson goodreads