A few things worth noting. To be continued.
Brief Summary
A Biography by Isaacson (Isaacson, 2017)
Key Takeaways
- Go deeper than what is on surface. To paint a person, you must see
the skeleton in your mind and construct the painting from there.
Miscellaneous Notes
- p.1: At 30 yo, Leonardo da Vinci (LdV) wrote a letter to ask for a
job, listing what he can do in the first 10 paragraphs, e.g. engineering
skills, design, building waterways, cannons, armoured vehicles and
public buildings. And in the eleventh paragraph, he wrote he can also
paint.
- p.3: Newton and Einstein had much processing power. LdV was curious
and practiced intense observation.
- p.4: Vision without execution is hallucination. Ability to blur the
line between reality and fantasy is a key to creativity. LdV knew how to
marry observation and imagination.
- p.4: LdV left notebooks more than 7200 pages. Paper turns out to be
a superb information storage technology, still readable after 500
years.
- p.8: LdV was dark and troubled at times, but he managed his demons
while conjuring up his dragons.
- p.17: First-hand experience vs. learning from books, and others.
He’s praising personal and deep learning through personal
explorations.
- p.19: Freud’s thoughts of LdV reveals more about Freud than LdV
himself.
- p.26: Florence was a beautiful place in all senses: Shops became
studios, merchants financiers, and artisans artists.
- p.28: Note how angles of height produce shadows and the perception
of depth.
- pp. 29-30: Check out Lean Battista Alberti. He said “one must apply
the greatest artistry in three things: walking in the city, riding a
horse, and speaking. In each of these one must try to please
everyone.
- p.40: No sharp lines … shadows. Light should be blended like smoke
disappearing in air rendering contour-less image so smooth and images
are still displayed.
- p.47: The glory of being an artist → reality informs artist but not
constraint him.
- p.56: Translucent → Transcendent. Transform → Transit.
- p.70: Homosexuality was not uncommon. Verrocchio was never married
nor did Botticelli. Other gay artists: Donatello, Michelangelo and
Benvenito Cellini (convicted of sodomy twice).
- p.72: LdV as a gay, illegitimate and accused of sodomy twice, he
regarded himself as “different” so that turned out to be more an asset
than a hindrance.
- p.88: A good painter has to paint two principal things: the man and
the intention of his mind. First is easy, second is represented by the
movement of limbs and gestures. (movement is linked to mental state of
the figure).
Movements should announce the motions of the mind.
- p.89: From Dante, “foam in the water, smoke upon the wind”.
- pp. 112-128: Court entertainers: LDV built instrument, played music,
painted “credit card size” grotesques and also wrote pieces. Some
interpreted these as he was suffering from madness. Some think that
these pieces were written for performance (theater) “experience of
deluge”. His writing is as lively as his paintings, make you feel that
you’re in the scene. His writing reflected his dark side.
- p.149: The ten books on architecture by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (80
BC).
- p.149: Vitruvius work was appealing to LDV and Francesco. They use
an analogy Francesco wrote: “All the arts and all the world’s rules are
derived from a well-composed and proportioned human body”.
- p.150: The proportions of man are analogous to well-conceived temple
and to the macrocosm of the world became central to LDV’s world
view.
Reference
