When asked to recall the names of well known artists, names such as Claude Monet, Michelangelo, and Vincent Van Gough are probably among the most common that would be named. When asked to recall the names of well known philosophers, names such as Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle might be among those that immediately come to mind. Leonardo da Vinci, however, a man most certainly known for his outstanding contributions to the world of art, most certainly also belongs on the list of philosophers as well.
Art, in and of itself, is a unique form of philosophical expression. There are no words that accompany a painting, drawing, sculpture, or any other work of an artist. The emotion and philosophy of the artist with regard to his work may not necessarily be the same emotion and philosophy interpreted by the viewer. Artwork cannot be expected to lead everyone in the same mental and emotional direction. No two people will view a painting and think exactly the same thoughts; the memories, opinions, speculations, and emotions evoked by artwork of any sort will always be specifically unique to each individual.
“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” – Aristotle, Philosopher, (384-322 BCE.)
“What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something which is related only to objects and not to individuals, or to life. That art is something which is specialized or which is done by experts who are artists. But couldn’t everyone’s life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object, but not our life?” – Michel Foucault, French Philosopher (1926-1984)
“In the sphere of thought, sober civilization is roughly synonymous with science. But science, unadulterated, is not satisfying; men also need passion and art and religion. Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to the imagination.” – Bertrand Russell, Mathematician, Philosopher (1872-1970)
“It is the artist who realizes that there is a supreme force above him and works gladly away as a small apprentice under God’s heaven.” – Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Author, Awarded 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature
“Painting is a means by which certain great people in the past have attained to a maximum of being and self-awareness, and we can increase our own reality by the contemplation of their works.” – Francis Hoyland, Modern British Artist, Author
“In dealing with a scientific problem, I first arrange several experiments, and then show with reasons why such an experiment must necessarily operate in this and in no other way. This is the method which must be followed in all research upon the phenomenon of nature. We must consult experience in the variety of cases and circumstances until we can draw from them a general rule that is contained in them. And for what purposes are these rules good? They lead us to further investigations of nature and to creations of art. They prevent us from deceiving ourselves and others by promising results which are not obtainable.” – Leonardo da Vinci (above quotes – www.spaceandmotion.com)
Born in a small Tuscan village near Florence, Italy, on April 15, 1452, Leonardo da Vinci was the child of unwed parents. He was the son of a nobleman; a descendant of a family of lawyers, notaries, and dignitaries. His mother was a peasant girl, and an inappropriate wife for a member of such a prominent family. Being an illegitimate son prevented Leonardo from being afforded the opportunity of a higher level of formal education, nor was it expected of him to achieve any scholastic goals. Instead, at about the age of 15, Leonardo became an apprentice in the art studio of Andrea del Verrocchio, establishing himself as an artist. Though, certainly, Leonardo was a gifted artist, his lack of formal education separated him from upper class society. Although Leonardo spent the biggest part of his life in the presence of the upper class, under the employ or in the service of various rulers and leaders, he never fully became an accepted part of it. Possibly the lack of understanding and mastering Latin created a source of frustration for him more than anything, in that it prevented him from easily reading the works of the ancient philosophers such as Plato, Archimedes, Aristotle, and many others in whose work he was greatly interested. (Hart pg. 27)
Leonardo da Vinci is described as being handsome and fastidious; he was considered a gentleman and good company, having a sense of humor. As well as being accomplished in visual arts, he was also a talented poet and musician. Self-control and morality were very important to him, as well as cleanliness. (www.newadvent.org) He stated, “If anyone would see how the soul lives in its body, let him see how the body makes use of this daily tenancy: if the soul is disorderly and in confusion, the body will itself be maintained in disorder and confusion by its soul.” (Vallentin pg. 35) Leonardo was well-liked, and was formally recognized as both an artist and an architect. He was a perfectionist and paid strong attention to detail. With regard to his artwork, Leonardo was able to convey not only a portrait of the person, but also facial expression and personality.
The life of Leonardo da Vinci is written in his own hand on literally thousands of pages; both loose and in notebooks. Notes to himself, accounting notations, reminders, instructions, thoughts, experimental procedures, anatomical drawings and findings; literally every aspect of Leonardo was written down – some of it in the form of a sort of diary, and other parts seem to have been intended for future use as a textbook. Page after page is full of ideas, architectural and engineering projects, philosophical ponderings and arguments, sketches of faces, nature and its workings, and much more. Some research has been necessary to put together the parts of his life, but for the most part, Leonardo has told us himself. One does not necessarily have to guess or presume much of anything; one only has to read his notes. These self-created compilations of his genius, after his death, were passed along to friends and heirs, bought, sold, traded, stolen, put away and forgotten, but seemingly never read. Leonardo’s writings were thought of as treasures, yet his scientific discoveries, creativity, engineering projects, philosophical statements, and innovative inventions lay dormant and unnoticed for centuries.
However, it must also be acknowledged that his notes may not have been able to be understood. Leonardo is thought to have been left handed, and he adopted his own style of writing: in complete reverse, and readable only with the aid of a mirror. There are many different speculations as to the significance of this unusual practice, one of which is that he was worried about the secrecy of his writings; possibly concerned with plagiarism or with the possibility that some of his work would be reviewed and discovered by the Church, which would have strongly disagreed with many of his scientific methods of gaining knowledge, and would have labeled him a heretic.
It has been recorded that Leonardo suffered some injury or paralysis of the right hand, thereby forcing him to use his left hand. However, the consensus is that he was naturally left handed, and the practice of writing from right to left was a matter of practicality; the hand would always be ahead of the writing and not smear the ink. The concept of mirrored images, however, was significant in and of itself for him and it’s possible that his preoccupation with mirrored images carried forth into his penmanship as well. Leonardo’s thinking: “When you wish to see whether your whole picture accords with what you have portrayed from nature, take a mirror and reflect the actual object in it. Compare what is reflected with your painting and carefully consider whether both likenesses of the subject correspond, particularly in regard to the mirror.” And also: “The painter should be like a mirror which is transformed into as many colors as are placed before it, and in doing this, he will seem to be a second nature.” (www.metmuseum.org)
Another possible reason why his genius lay dormant would be that he left many of his projects unfinished. Many of his experiments were seemingly abandoned, or put aside for the moment and then forgotten. At other times, it seems as if he may have simply lost interest or become distracted by something else altogether. He offered his services as a commissioned artist, but he was notorious for not completing the work. In fact, he finished fewer than two dozen paintings in his lifetime. It seems unlikely that a man of Leonardo’s moral character could be considered irresponsible, and his behavior, combined with the known facts of his life, has suggested to some that he battled attention deficit disorder. “The known facts about Leonardo’s life show that Leonardo’s ADD (attention deficit disorder), lack of training in discipline to sustain his efforts and finish products, combined with easy early successes, help account for the lopsided talent vs. productivity. Most likely, his temptations to continue experimenting rather than address the more boring tasks involved in completing works, were heightened by the richness and power of his imagination.” (add.about.com)
However, a commentary from an 1883 translation of Leonardo’s notebooks states, “He has been unjustly accused of having squandered his powers, by beginning a variety of studies and then, having hardly begun, throwing them aside. The truth is that the labors of three centuries have hardly sufficed for the elucidation of some of the problems which occupied his mighty mind.” (http://digital.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=500)
Leonardo da Vinci seemed to have been a man who lived life in a constant state of questioning, “How does it work?” or “What will it do?” He was a man of observation and a need for understanding. Observation and experience, he said, were the ways one gained true knowledge; “To me it seems that those sciences are vain and full of error which are not born of experience, mother of all certainty, first hand experience which in its origins, or means, or end has passed through one of the five senses.” (www.thinkarete.com)
To Leonardo, sight was to be held in the highest regard of all the five senses. “The eye is the window of the soul,” he said. (Vallentin pg. 111) Placing such importance on the eye, however, was in direct conflict with the philosophers who believed the senses were a hindrance with regard to inner contemplation. In response, Leonardo stated, “And if you say that contemplation hinders the concentrated reflection by means of which we find our way to the knowledge of God…I reply that the eye, as prince of the senses, does its part by putting a stop to muddled and mendacious – not sciences, but definitions.” (Vallentin pg. 111-112)
“For Leonardo the key organ in understanding the world is not the brain but the eye: ‘The eye, which is called the window of the soul, is the chief means whereby the understanding may most fully and abundantly appreciate the infinite works of Nature,’” (Nicholl pp. 55-56)
As with many of his contemporary artists, nature was a very important focus. Unlike his contemporaries, however, Leonardo believed nature was also to be witnessed first hand. He acknowledged that it would be much easier to gain information from reading books or seeing the works of other artists, but he argued, “Wouldn’t that be more convenient, and less tiring, since you can stay in a cool place without moving about and exposing yourself to illness? But, if you did only that, your soul could not experience, through the window of the eye, the inspiring beauties of the countryside. It could not receive the reflections of bright places; it could not see the shady valleys,” once again expressing the value of personal visual experience. (Nicholl pg. 47)
Though he felt so strongly about the importance of the eye, he realized the necessity of somehow acknowledging that which cannot be proven by visual experiment; the philosophies and inner contemplations of the mind. As if to settle the question, he stated, “Our body is subordinate to heaven, and heaven is subordinate to the spirit,” and also, “The senses are earthly; the reason stands outside them during contemplation.” (Vallentin pg. 111-112)
As a man of science, he often performed experiments, investigated matters, and set out to prove or disprove things of this world with methods which would have labeled him a heretic in the eyes of the Church. His consuming interest in anatomy led him to several dissections of the human body, and his drawings and notations with regard to his findings are astounding. The drive for knowledge and understanding of the workings of the human body far surpassed any squeamishness he may have had to endure. “Leonardo wanted to implement his knowledge of the macrocosmos and physics that rule the world into his microcosmos of the human body. His work was, indeed, influenced by the several philosophies and theories prevailing in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, however, da Vinci possessed a unique imagination that separated him from the rest.” (www.stanford.edu)
The anatomists who were among Leonardo’s contemporaries would have been classified as belonging to either of two main schools of thought. There were the “empirics”, who denied the value of physiological theory, disregarding scientific principles and rejecting dissection as a means of obtaining knowledge for medical treatment. The second group, the “natural philosophers” adhered to the practice of understanding the inner workings of the human body in order to heal illnesses. In addition, there were also a few who, like Leonardo, worked alone and learned from dissection of bodies, and known as naturalists. Of course Leonardo would have been influenced by the other two schools of thought, “…but his deeper nature proved that he might have been closer to the “natural philosophers” than to the “empirics”, for he believed in getting to know the secret of life. However, he believed that natural philosophers wasted too many words at the expense of clarity.” (www.stanford.edu)
His fascination with the workings of the human body led him again in the direction of thought regarding the eye. As an artist, the workings of the eye with regard to perspective, light, and shadows were, of course, something in which Leonardo would have studied at length. As an anatomist, however, the source of curiosity was how the eye actually worked. With a combination of his skills as an artist, scientist, and anatomist, Leonardo performed a dissection of the eye. In his notes he wrote, “In the anatomy of the eye, in order to be able to see the inside well without spilling its watery humor, you should place the complete eye in white of egg and make it boil and become solid, cutting the egg and the eye transversely so that no part of the middle portion may be poured out.” (Hart pg. 243) This is but one example of his detailed study, recording, and quest for knowledge of the human body.
The notes taken by Leonardo as he conducted and illustrated his anatomical findings were interpreted into descriptions using “technical ideas.” (www.stanford.edu) He often labeled body parts as one would label the working pieces of machinery, and using the same terminology and descriptions of movement and purposes. The well known drawing ‘The Vitruvian Man’ is as much a scientific study as it is an anatomical study. The drawing is of a man, arms extended outward at his sides, parallel to the ground; all enclosed within a square – the top of the square being at the top of the man’s head, the bottom as if it is the floor on which the man is standing, and each side perpendicular to, and touching the outstretched fingertips. Superimposed over this image is the same man with legs spread and arms raised, however this image is enclosed within a circle; the man’s navel being the center of that circle. The drawing combines mathematics with anatomy, showing that “The width of a man’s outspread arms is equal to his height,” and “The distance from the roots of the hair to the eyebrows is equal to the distance from the tip of the chin to the mouth.” Leonardo states, “If you open your legs so much as to decrease your height by 1/14th, and raise your outspread arms till the tips of your middle fingers are level with the top of your head, you will find that the centre of your outspread limbs will be the navel, and the space between the legs will be an equilateral triangle.” (Nicholl pg. 247) For Leonardo, the human body was a logical and well engineered working piece of construction.
In his study of the human skull, Leonardo incorporated life force with this mechanical analogy of the human body, “The common sense is what judges the things given to it by the other senses. The ancient speculators concluded that man’s capacity to interpret is caused by an organ to which the other five senses refer everything…They say that this common sense is situated in the center of the head between the zones of impression and memory,” and “It seems that the soul resides in this organ…called the Common Sense. It is not spread throughout the body as many have thought, but is entirely in one part, because if it were all pervading and the same in every part, there would have been no need to make the organs of the senses converge…The common Sense is the seat of the soul.” (Nicholl pp. 242-243)
There is no absolute proof one way or another about the degree of Leonardo’s Christian faith, although it is generally believed that he was, at minimum, a believer in God. It could be a possibility that Leonardo avoided the Church and church doctrines, not as a direct disregard for God, but rather in order to avoid any possibilities of hindering his scientific endeavors, stating, “The eye, which is called the window of the soul, is the principal means by which the central sense can most completely and abundantly appreciate the infinite works of nature.” (Nuland, pg.55)
“That which was of God, he left to the clergy; that which was of nature, he took to be in his domain. It was a statement worthy of a twenty-first-century researcher.” (Nuland pg. 55)
One cannot prove God with an unemotional, logically, and methodically conducted experiment. God cannot be witnessed in the form of visible cause and effect without including faith as an element of the cause. Faith is something that cannot be proven, but rather blindly accepted. Leonardo was very much a man of cause and effect, and combined with his belief in the importance of observation and experience, it could have been that for this man of logic, if the question of God’s existence had already been settled in his mind, there was no longer any reason to contemplate the matter. There were too many things in Leonardo’s world yet to be observed.
Many of his paintings and artwork portray images and themes that are very much in line with Christianity, such as The Last Supper and Saint John the Baptist, for example, and the recurring theme of Madonna and Child. The artistic side of Leonardo appears to be Christian. The scientific side, however, was in direct conflict with much of the Church Doctrine of the time. Perhaps some of this conflict was just as much within Leonardo as it was evidenced during his life. In keeping with his concept of man as a machine, he wrote, “O you who look on this our machine, do not be sad that with others you are fated to die, but rejoice that our Creator has endowed us with such an excellent instrument as the intellect.” (www.straightdope.com)
Often called the ‘Renaissance Man’, Leonardo was, as one person, the epitome of the Renaissance era and culture. The meaning of renaissance, as a word, is rebirth, or revival, and that was certainly what the people of the time sought most. They actively and purposefully pursued knowledge and change with regard to man’s outlook on life in virtually all ways of learning; science, philosophy, nature, and art, to name a few. “The whole trend of Renaissance art was to narrow the gap, to stress that the artist could and should belong to the ranks of scholars, philosophers and scientists.” (Nicholl pg. 54) Thus, Leonardo, with his all-encompassing artistic gifts, incredible intelligence, and quest for knowledge, earned this label.
Leonardo da Vinci was not a scholar, yet seemed to possess infinite intelligence. He was not a nobleman, yet he was a gentleman and associate of the upper class. He wrote thousands of pages of notes, but none of it was ever published. He was a gifted artist, but abandoned far more works than he completed. He was not a teacher, yet he left pages of instructions. He was centuries before his time in the fields of geology, botany, anatomy, engineering, mechanics, and science, yet received no acknowledgement until centuries later. Leonardo da Vinci was a man of great significance; a man with a name that has become a title all its own.
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