A Renaissance Man: A Review of Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson

Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Leonardo Da Vinci was one of the great geniuses of the human race. A polymath, Da Vinci's skill with the brush was beyond dispute, but he also was vastly curious about a number of different areas beyond art. Indeed, his examinations of different areas of scientific inquiry would prefigure the scientific method of Bacon and Galileo and some of his personal scientific discoveries would not be discovered by the wider world for centuries later. So, what made Da Vinci tick? Mr. Isaacson, biographer of other geniuses such as Einstein, Ben Franklin, and Steve Jobs, sets out to do just that and draw lessons for the reader in this biography.

Mr. Isaacson starts and ends this book with an appreciation of Da Vinci's wide ranging curiosities, which were vast. Some of them, as Mr. Isaacson points out, has almost nothing to do with art or... anything of practical use. Da Vinci investigated many of them to satiate his own curiosity. It's one of Da Vinci's qualities that make him both admirable and frustrating. Mr. Isaacson catalogues nearly all of Da Vinci's known works in both art and his personal notebooks. He notes that Da Vinci could easily be driven to distraction, so much so that many of his artworks were left unfinished. Not only that, but all of his personal discoveries that prefigured their later discoveries were never published. Thus, I often put down this book thinking about just how frustrating Da Vinci must have been as a person in real life.

However, if you're looking for a traditional biography that records as many details of Da Vinci's day-to-day life as possible, you might be in for a bit of a surprise. Oftentimes, Mr. Isaacson forgoes details about Da Vinci's life in favor of an appraisal of Da Vinci's art and inner mind as expressed in his personal notebooks. Indeed, the book follows a pattern of "Check out cool thing A Da Vinci did... Checkout cool thing B Da Vinci did... but they were never finished." Thus, compared to his Steve Jobs biography, this book is far less critical of Da Vinci the man. Walking away from this book, I appreciate Da Vinci's art and mind more, but don't feel like I know more about the man himself.

I also felt like Mr. Isaacson was less than objective in his appraisals. As I said before, Mr. Isaacson spends a lot of time analyzing and appreciating Da Vinci's art and he has almost nothing but praise for it. Indeed, he seems to appreciate Da Vinci's art so much that he gives little love to other contemporary Renaissance artists. This is especially true of Michelangelo, whom Mr. Isaacson compares to Da Vinci a couple of times and even writes a good chapter of the only known time the two worked on an artwork together, or rather against each other. Mr. Isaacson doesn't give much love to Michelangelo and some of his appraisals of him border on hostile. I doubt anyone who has seen both these masters' works would say one was better than the other, but Mr. Isaacson does. As someone who appreciates Michelangelo's art just as much as Leonardo's, Mr. Isaacson's disdain for him and other Renaissance artists is a little jarring.

Da Vinci was just as brilliant as he was frustrating, and Mr. Isaacson has done a commendable job bringing him and his art to life. The lessons that Mr. Isaacson draws from Da Vinci's life in the conclusion are also wise and prudent. You may not come away from this book knowing about Da Vinci's life in detail, but you will gain a better appreciation of his work and astounding mind. Don't be surprised if you find yourself trying to imitate some of Da Vinci's habits in your life after reading this book.


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