
- 624 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
Leonardo da Vinci
About this book
Now a docuseries from Ken Burns on PBS!
The #1 New York Times bestseller from Walter Isaacson brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography that is “a study in creativity: how to define it, how to achieve it…Most important, it is a powerful story of an exhilarating mind and life” (The New Yorker).
Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo da Vinci’s astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson “deftly reveals an intimate Leonardo” (San Francisco Chronicle) in a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy.
He produced the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper. His ability to stand at the crossroads of the humanities and the sciences, made iconic by his drawing of Vitruvian Man, made him history’s most creative genius.
In the “luminous” (Daily Beast) Leonardo da Vinci, Isaacson describes how Leonardo’s delight at combining diverse passions remains the ultimate recipe for creativity. So, too, does his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical. His life should remind us of the importance to be imaginative and, like talented rebels in any era, to think different. Here, da Vinci “comes to life in all his remarkable brilliance and oddity in Walter Isaacson’s ambitious new biography…a vigorous, insightful portrait” (The Washington Post).
The #1 New York Times bestseller from Walter Isaacson brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography that is “a study in creativity: how to define it, how to achieve it…Most important, it is a powerful story of an exhilarating mind and life” (The New Yorker).
Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo da Vinci’s astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson “deftly reveals an intimate Leonardo” (San Francisco Chronicle) in a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy.
He produced the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper. His ability to stand at the crossroads of the humanities and the sciences, made iconic by his drawing of Vitruvian Man, made him history’s most creative genius.
In the “luminous” (Daily Beast) Leonardo da Vinci, Isaacson describes how Leonardo’s delight at combining diverse passions remains the ultimate recipe for creativity. So, too, does his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical. His life should remind us of the importance to be imaginative and, like talented rebels in any era, to think different. Here, da Vinci “comes to life in all his remarkable brilliance and oddity in Walter Isaacson’s ambitious new biography…a vigorous, insightful portrait” (The Washington Post).
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Yes, you can access Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Art & Artist Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Acknowledgments
- Main Characters
- Currency in Italy in 1500
- Timeline
- Introduction I Can Also Paint
- Chapter 1 Childhood
- Chapter 2 Apprentice
- Chapter 3 On His Own
- Chapter 4 Milan
- Chapter 5 Leonardo’s Notebooks
- Chapter 6 Court Entertainer
- Chapter 7 Personal Life
- Chapter 8 Vitruvian Man
- Chapter 9 The Horse Monument
- Chapter 10 Scientist
- Chapter 11 Birds and Flight
- Chapter 12 The Mechanical Arts
- Chapter 13 Math
- Chapter 14 The Nature of Man
- Chapter 15 Virgin of the Rocks
- Chapter 16 The Milan Portraits
- Chapter 17 The Science of Art
- Chapter 18 The Last Supper
- Chapter 19 Personal Turmoil
- Chapter 20 Florence Again
- Chapter 21 Saint Anne
- Chapter 22 Paintings Lost and Found
- Chapter 23 Cesare Borgia
- Chapter 24 Hydraulic Engineer
- Chapter 25 Michelangelo and the Lost Battles
- Chapter 26 Return to Milan
- Chapter 27 Anatomy, Round Two
- Chapter 28 The World and Its Waters
- Chapter 29 Rome
- Chapter 30 Pointing the Way
- Chapter 31 The Mona Lisa
- Chapter 32 France
- Chapter 33 Conclusion
- Coda Describe the tongue of the woodpecker
- Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Sources
- About the Author
- Notes
- Illustration Credits
- Index
- Copyright