The Genius of Leonardo

 I watched all four hours of the two segments of  Leonardo Da Vinci, the PBS documentary created by Ken Burns. In truth I saw about three and a half hours, maybe a bit more, because I drifted off during the latter part of the first episode. I don't feel that this was Burns's best work but it was still worthwhile in many respects. I've read the tour de force biography by Walter Isaacson who is interviewed in the series but there is a lot to be said for a visual presentation of the life and times of a person who understood perhaps more than any other human being that the eye is the window to the brain and therefore the soul. 

The term genius gets thrown around far too much but Leonardo was an extraordinary polymath whose mind was unceasingly at work. A surgeon is interviewed about his anatomical studies through human dissection which altered perceptions of the way our bodies function that had existed for centuries. More than this, the surgeon pointed out that Leonardo's understanding of musculature and speculation about the circulatory system were hundreds of years ahead of modern science.

Leonardo was an engineer who was consulted about fortifications even though he strongly condemned war. He was able to imagine and create aerial views of landscapes long before planes or drones. He was a keen observer of nature and the flight of birds in a way that allowed him to figure out the dynamics of flight. His notebooks, many of which have survived, ran to thousands of passages of drawings and written musings. Yes, he was a genius. 

As an artist he led the way in creating exquisite three-dimensional subjects on a two-dimensional plane and his principles of modelling and perspective were emulated by some of the greatest painters of the Renaissance. He didn't produce many paintings and many of the commissioned works he started weren't completed because he would move on to other projects or decide that they weren't done. He transported the Mona Lisa, arguably the most famous painting of all time, on a donkey when he moved from Italy to France in later life. 

The documentary noted that he was known for having a keen sense of humour and I wish we'd heard more about this, although there may not be much available. His depictions of nature in the backgrounds of portraits and religious works were often accurate representations of landscapes he knew. And while he wasn't particularly religious he knew the iconography and stories of Christian faith -- his livelihood depended on it. That said, he believed in a Creator and his conviction that everything is rooted in nature he expressed his admiration for what he experienced around him. 

It's helpful for me to reflect on this documentary and I hope you get a chance to watch it, even if a nap mid-episode is needed. 

Here are some of the resources PBS has made available.

https://www.pbs.org/show/leonardo-da-vinci/