This was even though he received no immediate remuneration, in terms of money or benefits, from developing such interests. Leonardo's notebooks of this period of his life reveal a spirit of scientific inquiry and a mechanical inventiveness that were centuries ahead of his time.
Ivor Hart makes it clear that Leonardo was far more than a great artist: he had one of the best scientific minds of his time. Perhaps Leonardo's great talent was in observing -- he made careful, painstaking observations of the natural world, such as birds in flight. Such careful observations of the natural world are critical, of course, to the eye of a great artist. But Leonardo's eye enabled him to carry out research of precision as well as beauty, in science as well as art.
Perhaps the real paradox is how separate art and science have become in the modern construction of the disciplines. Leonardo studied light in the living, breathing life of the world to better hone his use of light and shade in his painting. This gave rise to the shadowy effect later known as Leonardo-esque in the "Mona Lisa" and can be seen in his drawings as well. Leonardo left 13,000 pages of notes and drawings, which fuse art and science and were just beginning to excite scholars and historians of the science of the period, in 1964, when Hart wrote his book upon this then little-explored aspect of Leonardo's life and career.
In conclusion,...
Through the concrete construction of flight, human beings could soar to the skies. The drawings celebrated the male human frame, rather than showing it in positions of being broken down, as in medieval views of the anatomy. Theological sanctions against dissection prohibited penetrating the human skin after death. Yet Leonardo speculated about the anatomical construction of both the avian and human species in his art and drawings as well as participated in illegal autopsies and produced many extremely detailed anatomical drawings, planning a comprehensive work of human and comparative anatomy.
Leonardo's work as a scientist is too well-known, nowadays, to say that reading Hart's book for a contemporary student of the period fundamentally shakes his or her conceptions of Leonardo as an artist alone. However, rather than merely reinforcing the image of Leonardo as a quintessential master of all the disciplines, the reader emerges with a more balanced perspective of the Renassance integration of science, theology, and art in the mind of Leonardo -- an integration that in today's highly specialized times seems enviable.
Works Cited
Hart, Ivor. The World of Leonardo da Vinci Man of Science, Engineer and Dreamer of Flight. New York, 1962.
