Leonardo Da Vinci by Oliver Beale

Leonardo Da Vinci:

April 15, 1452 to May 2, 1519                                                                   “Like a day well spent makes sleep seem pleasant, so does a life well lived make death pleasant… A life well lived is long”

Why Leonardo is important:

“[A] painter’s work will be of little merit if he takes the painting of others as his standard, but if he studies from nature he will produce good fruit”

Leonardo da Vinci is perhaps the best known polymath of the Italian Renaissance.  His work touched many fields including painting, drawing, anatomy, engineering, cartography, sculpture, and philosophy.  Although only few of his completed paintings survive, his work is alive in the pages of his notebooks.         He was very intelligent; for example, he observed in his time that the air is made up of atoms of what he believed to be moisture.  He stated that at the top of a mountain, the sun was brighter but the air was darker, whereas on the plain below, the air was bluer and the sun darker, and therefore the atmosphere is what separates earth from the blackness beyond as he put it.  Although he is less known for his philosophical writing, his ideas on life and art were not just very insightful to the world, but also reflected a part of his own mindset.  Indeed, Leonardo Da Vinci was truly the greatest and last “universal man”, as few if any, has come to such intellectual and creative heights as he did.

Why I chose Leonardo and how his life relates to mine:

“The water you touch in a river is the last of that which has gone, and the first of that which is coming: so it is with time present”

One reason I chose Leonardo was since I was a child, I was exposed to his works and ideas.  I remember going to the Da Vinci museum in Milan and inspecting all his designs and models (which were recreations of course).        As a man of the mind, Leonardo sought knowledge where he could, even if it meant cutting up corpses (which was highly frowned upon and illegal in most areas).  I have seen that acquiring knowledge, no matter how insignificant, makes the world a much more complex and beautiful place.

What the world would be like if there was no Leonardo Da Vinci:

Interestingly enough, the world would not be changed much.  The greatest loss, which would be very great indeed, would be the loss of his paintings and philosophies.  Most of his inventions and discoveries were never published, so he did not greatly impact the world of science and engineering.  Only a few of his works, such as sloped fortifications to deflect cannon balls would not have appeared when they did.  It is probably that all his scientific discoveries and his inventions (or more practical designs at least) would have discovered by someone else.  His creative impact on us though, would not be, as they were the children of his mind and his mind alone.

What I would ask Leonardo if I met him:

“Knowledge of the past and of the places of the earth is the ornament and food of the mind of man”

I would ask him to participate in intellectual with me.  I would want to hear his ideas on subjects, the condition of the world he lived in, the everyday life of people in the Renaissance.   I would also enjoy teaching him of the world since his time, the discoveries, ideologies, the politics, the architecture, the society, and even the art of our time (I would also show him some modern art to observe his reaction).

How being Italian impacted Leonardo:

“It is better to imitate ancient rather than modern work”

Italy during the time of the Renaissance provided a fertile land for thinkers to cultivate their minds.  The two main ideologies in Italy during the Renaissance included the scholarly thinking of the large city states such as Milan, Florence, and Rome, but also the religious and often mystical thinking of the Umbrian city states such as Perugia.  Together, these ideologies created in Italy individuals who strove for the perfection of physical knowledge and the mundane as well as metaphysical and religious and the connections between all things.  This melting pot of ideology directly impacted Leonardo by making him who he was, a “universal man”, one who strove to acquire knowledge in all fields.  The renaissance also influenced his art as can be seen by the realistic portrayal of nature in his paintings which also include a bit of religious symbolism and supernatural atmosphere.  Leonardo worked in many cities in Italy, and even outside Italy.  What he experienced made him who he was, and working for the royal merchant families of the Italian city states made his name spread over Europe.  Surely, if it was not born in Italy, especially the Italy of the Renaissance, he would not have achieved what he had.