Walter Isaacson

"He was history's most creative genius. What secrets can he teach us? The [bestselling biographer] brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography. Drawing on thousands of pages from Leonardo's astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weaves a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo's genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy. His creativity, like that of other great innovators, came from standing at the intersection of the humanities and technology. He peeled flesh off the faces of cadavers, drew the muscles that move the lips, and then painted history's most memorable smile on the Mona Lisa. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper. Isaacson also describes how Leonardo's lifelong enthusiasm for staging theatrical productions informed his paintings and inventions. His ability to combine art and science, made iconic by his drawing of what may be himself inside a circle and a square, remains the enduring recipe for innovation. His life should remind us of the importance of instilling, both in ourselves and our children, not just received knowledge but a willingness to question it; to be imaginative and, like talented misfits and rebels in any era, to think different."--Jacket.

Leonardo Da Vinci

Mat Connor

Leonardo Da Vinci left behind thousands of pages of notes and sketches. Walter Isaacson acknowledges early on that, despite their frequent brilliance, these notebooks lack many “intimate personal revelations.” Da Vinci was much more likely to write down his to-do or grocery list than he was to note what paintings he was working on at any given time or how he felt at the death of his father. Da Vinci’s biographers have had to fill in a lot of gaps and rely on sources like Vasari, who was only 8 years old when Da Vinci died. For this reason, Isaacson has chosen an episodic approach, with chapters centered around Da Vinci’s major works or interests (Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, Anatomy, Engineering, ect).

Da Vinci’s best quality was his insatiable curiosity. This biography is a treasure trove of interesting facts and anecdotes. My favorite is that he once met a man who claimed to be 100 years old—imagine how mind blowing that would have been in the 16th century—and once the man passed away of natural causes Da Vinci proceeded to dissect the man’s body to learn how bodies age. Da Vinci dissected 30+ bodies—one of his notebooks list a reminder to “acquire a skull”—and his anatomical drawings are still respected for their accuracy.

He designed plans for parachutes and diving suits. Wondered aloud like a child why the sky is blue. Tried to draw a woodpecker’s tongue. Concluded that fish fossils found on mountain tops and caves were not swept there by Noah’s Flood but were there because sea levels had fallen in these places long ago. 

He wanted to know everything about everything.

Worth reading to understand Leonardo’s curious it’s and genius, as well as patronage as a funding model. Drags at times if you don’t care about the history of each and every Leonardo painting/drawing/dissection.

Absolutely phenomenal! 

Leonardo just rose waaay to the top of my favourite artists just because of this book. Even though I'd seen his paintings live many times and knew many of the stories behind them, Isaacson puts it all into a deeply insightful and compelling context. I was desperate to keep reading this book and find out more and more!

Jamieson

Going into this book I knew literally nothing about Leonardo Da Vinci (well, besides the extreme basics like, 'he painted Mona Lisa/The Last Supper!'). Upon finishing this book, I think I know more about Leonardo Da Vinci then I will ever need to know in my lifetime. 

I've been trying to get more into art history, just because I find it interesting even though I know little about art. I'm not sure why I was compelled to read this 550+ page book about Leonardo Da Vinci specifically, but I'm glad I did! I found it so interesting. This is probably more aimed toward those who know little about da Vinci (like me) so it suited me well. It goes through Leonardo's life from bith to death in chronological order, with longer chapters focussing on his greater works like Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. 

Some of the chapters seemed to jump around a bit, and there were a few things that were repeated a few times until it felt redundant, but I still think this was overall such a fascinating book. I had to stop multiple times to tell people some random Leonardo fact because I was so interested and had to share. 

Overall this is a comprehensive look at a figure who has a huge cultural impact but who I didn't know much about personally. It's really well written, easy to listen to (I listened on audiobook) and full of so many interesting facts

600 pages of one of the geniuses of history. But Leonardo was a genius not only because of his accomplishments but also because of the process of his results. Obsessed with details, respecting the facts, trying different experiences to prove his hypothesis, and just following his curiosity. He is an artist, an engineer, an architect, a theater producer, and so many more different things. This book tries to capture all nuances and details about his life and how he was really different.

Nelson Zagalo

Isaacson tem vindo a escrever biografias sobre vários criadores multidisciplinares, ou polímatas, — Benjamim Franklin (2003), Steve Jobs (2011) e Ada Lovelace (2014) — e alguns génios — Einstein (2009) e Alan Turing (2014) —, tendo a última, sobre Leonardo (2017), servido como síntese dos dois tipos de criadores, dadas as capacidades deste no abraçar de múltiplas artes (desenho, pintura, escultura, música ou arquitetura) e múltiplas ciências (engenharia, geometria, cartografia, anatomia, biologia, astronomia, ou física), e por em várias ter aprofundado e conseguido revolucionar o conhecimento existente — técnicas de pintura (sfumato e luz), geometria (perspectiva e vistas de sólidos) e engenharia (sistemas e hidráulica). Pode-se até discutir o valor de algumas das suas revoluções, mas não se pode retirar o mérito e brilhantismo de cada uma dessas inovações, o que em síntese nos obriga a colocar Leonardo no topo dos criadores de conhecimento de toda a História.
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Continuar a ler com imagens, links e formatação em: 
https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...

Jon Dubielzyk

Though I'm not a huge follower of art and museums, I've been curious about the works of da Vinci. The length of the book had me a bit worried, so I decided to listen to it in audiobook form instead. It's read by Alfred Molina and he does an outstanding job.

The book became one of my all-time favorite biographies and I'd recommend it to anyone curious about the life of da Vinci. It doesn't shy away from portraying both the good and bad, while going through both his personal and professional works. It gave me a greater understanding and insight into art and paintings.

It's rare for me to want a book to not finish, but I never wanted the book to end. This ranks as one of my favorite reading experiences ever.

Margaret Sh.

Stay foolish, stay procrastinating.
It's a very (sometimes too) detailed biography of the arguably the most accomplished Italian at all times. He's not only a painter, but a musician, a stage technician, an engineer, an inventor, and even a city planner at one point. Listening to the audiobook is a bit of torture, since one needs often refer to the pdf that was NOT included with my library loan (and I have to find it on Audible to download it). But yes, this is a book I'd recommend and one day collect.

The #1 New York Times bestseller from Walter Isaacson brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography that is “a study in creativity: how to define it, how to achieve it…Most important, it is a powerful story of an exhilarating mind and life” (The New Yorker). Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo da Vinci’s astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson “deftly reveals an intimate Leonardo” (San Francisco Chronicle) in a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy. He produced the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper. His ability to stand at the crossroads of the humanities and the sciences, made iconic by his drawing of Vitruvian Man, made him history’s most creative genius. In the “luminous” (Daily Beast) Leonardo da Vinci, Isaacson describes how Leonardo’s delight at combining diverse passions remains the ultimate recipe for creativity. So, too, does his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical. His life should remind us of the importance to be imaginative and, like talented rebels in any era, to think different. Here, da Vinci “comes to life in all his remarkable brilliance and oddity in Walter Isaacson’s ambitious new biography…a vigorous, insightful portrait” (The Washington Post).

Leonardo da Vinci

Omar Fernandez

Bought at Spoonbill & Sugartown Booksellers on Sept 14, 2020

This was definitely worth a listen (listened to the Audiobook version). It was a great companion during my morning runs and commutes. 



Walter Isaacson does a great job at painting a good portrait of da Vinci. By listening to this audiobook I gained an appreciation for da Vinci's work and life contributions. The key takeaways that I will take with me are the following (in no particular order). 

da Vinci made sense out of life mainly through observation. He was inquisitive and would learn by observing and experimenting. This allowed him to be ages ahead of his time when it came to scientific reasoning. 



da Vinci pursued art and science simultaneously. His art would be informed by, and help inform, his scientific research. 

When it came to love and personal relationships, da Vinci was attracted to young, handsome men. da Vinci himself was apparently quite attractive. In this regard, his lifestyle would be scandalous today. 



da Vinci had a hard time 'finishing' anything. Every endeavor he took he would pursue for as long as it intrigued him. He was known to make tweaks to his work whenever he saw a way to improve it. For example, adding a new brushstroke to a painting years after it had been originally 'finished'. 



da Vinci would pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge. He dissected bodies just to observe and understand what was beneath the surface. He had random notes and to do items in his notebooks that would be completely useless/pointless for any practical purpose. However, it was this pursuit of knowledge that would later inform his art in a way that would make it legendary. 



da Vinci wasn't a loner. He liked talking and working with others. In fact, one of the reasons many of his art paintings are hard to attribute to him is because he didn't sign his paintings. In addition, he would work on a piece of art in conjunction with his students or others in a shared studio of sorts. As such, there are many paintings where da Vinci contributed parts of it, but didn't paint the whole. 



To that last point, something that I find funny is that it is now possible for da Vinci followers to attribute to him only the best of his work, and discard everything else as not being "good enough to be a da Vinci." This adds to the mystique of da Vinci being simply amazing.



All in all, this book is a long look at the life of a genius artist and scientist, who used both his art and science to better understand the world in a way that was at times centuries ahead of his time. I'm very glad that I took the time to listen to it.

Najnowsza książka autora bestsellerów Steve Jobs i Innowatorzy – pobudzający wyobraźnię literacki portret Leonarda da Vinci. Odwołując się do liczących tysiące stron notatników geniusza, a także do najnowszych odkryć związanych z jego życiem i dorobkiem, Walter Isaacson snuje porywającą opowieść i po mistrzowsku splata wątki twórczości artystycznej Leonarda z jego dokonaniami naukowymi. Spod pędzla Leonarda wyszły dwa najsłynniejsze obrazy w historii malarstwa: Ostatnia Wieczerza i Mona Lisa. On sam uważał się jednak nie tylko za malarza, ale też za naukowca i inżyniera. Z pasją graniczącą niekiedy z obsesją prowadził nowatorskie badania nad anatomią człowieka, skamieniałościami, ptakami, maszynami latającymi, botaniką, geologią i sztuką projektowania broni. Niezwykła umiejętność łączenia nauk humanistycznych i przyrodniczych – której symbolem stał się Człowiek witruwiański – uczyniła Leonarda jednym z najbardziej kreatywnych geniuszy w dziejach ludzkości. Łączenie różnorodnych pasji, tak jak z upodobaniem robił to Leonardo, wciąż pozostaje najlepszym sposobem na rozbudzenie w sobie twórczej inwencji. Życiorys Leonarda – nieślubnego dziecka, homoseksualisty, mańkuta i wegetarianina, mającego problemy z koncentracją i ocierającego się czasem o herezję – to także najlepszy dowód na to, że outsider nie musi stać na straconej pozycji. Jego historia uświadamia nam, jak ważne jest, by nieustannie podsycać głód wiedzy, być gotowym do podawania jej w wątpliwość i mieć odwagę myśleć inaczej. Za tak ludzki portret geniusza Isaacson zasługuje na wyrazy najwyższego uznania. „The Times” Wiecznie głodny wiedzy, łatwo się rozpraszający, próżny, a przy tym wegetarianin. W znakomitej biografii Isaacsona Leonardo jest człowiekiem z krwi i kości. „The Sunday Times” Niezwykle pouczający przewodnik po twórczym dorobku jednego z największych umysłów minionego tysiąclecia. „The Observer”

Tomasz

Niesamowicie napisana sprawia, że można Leonarda poznać nie tylko od tej sztampowej (i pozytywnej) strony. Autor zgrabnie porusza się tu między sztuką, inżynierią, nauką, historią czy opisem codzienności. Pięknie wydana książka, duże ilustracje. Multum przypisów. Po jej przeczytaniu naprawdę można stwierdzić, że poznało się Leonarda dość wnikliwie.

Lucas Coelho

Da Vinci was already probably one of my favourite geniuses but with this book, I finally got a glimpse on who was the man behind that genius. I just could not stop listening. Another great Walter Isaacson book.

Recommend.

Unehelich, Vegetarier, homosexuell, Linkshänder, leicht ablenkbar und durchaus ketzerisch – Leonardo da Vinci verlangte der Gesellschaft des 15. und 16 Jahrhunderts so manches ab. Und er gab viel zurück. Er schälte das Fleisch von Schädeln, um die Gesichtsphysiognomie zu erkunden, zeichnete die Muskulatur der Lippen nach – und malte erst dann das einzigartige Lächeln der Mona Lisa! Er studierte, wie Lichtstrahlen auf die Hornhaut treffen ‒ und schaffte dadurch die wechselnden Perspektiven in seinem Gemälde "Das Abendmahl". Leonardos lebenslanger Enthusiasmus, Grenzen zu überschreiten, faszinierte bereits die einflussreichen Familien in Florenz und Mailand und gilt bis heute als wegweisendes Rezept für Kreativität und Innovationen. Walter Isaacson erzählt Leonardos Leben in völlig neuer Manier, indem er dessen künstlerisches und wissenschaftliches Wirken zueinander in Bezug setzt. Er zeigt dabei auf, dass Leonardos Genialität auf Fähigkeiten basierte, die jeder von uns in sich trägt und stärken kann: etwa leidenschaftliche Neugier, aufmerksame Beobachtung oder spielerische Einbildungskraft. Leonardo erinnert uns bis heute daran, wie wichtig es ist, nicht nur ständig neues Wissen zu erlangen, sondern dieses auch immer wieder zu hinterfragen, der Fantasie freien Raum zu lassen und abseits festgelegter Muster zu denken – so wie alle großen Geister der Weltgeschichte.

Die Biographie

Ilia Markov

This is a great book about a great man. Told more like a story, than a dry biography, it follows the life of Leonardo through the most pronounced of his quirks—his curiosity.

Leonardo Da Vinci

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