How do you write a clear and detailed biography about a man who live centuries ago? Writing a biography of someone who lived in the 1400s with such clarity and detail has to be a very difficult, an almost impossible job, but Walter Isaacson, biographer of Steve Job, Albert Einstein, does an amazing job of writing about life and times of Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo was an outlier, in many ways: illegitimate, vegetarian, flamboyant in dress, erratic in his work habits, astute self-promotor, self taught, no formal education, left-handed, gay, easily distracted, hardly finished his works, if he did finish them, he hardly published nor delivered his works. After listing interests from military engineering to science to designing sets for plays, he included almost as an afterthought, “I can also paint.” When he was about 30 years old, he applied for a job with the ruler of Milan. He saw his scientific exploits as something that nourished his art.Īccording to him, without his thirst for science, his art would not be prominent.ĭespite his remarkable artistic talent, Leonardo barely thought of himself as a painter. Leonardo viewed science as his foundation and the rest followed. But not a genius in the sense that he was a Master Artist, which he was, but in the sense that he was an engineer far more than an artist.
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