000 03693nam a22001577a 4500
999 _c296601
_d296601
020 _a9781471166761
082 _a 709.2 ISA-L
100 _aWalter Isaacson
245 _aLeonardo Da Vinci : The Biography
260 _aLondon
_bSimon & Schuster
_c2017
300 _a xii, 599 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 25 cm
505 _a Main Characters -- Currency in Italy in 1500 -- Note regarding the cover -- Primary periods of Leonardo's life -- Timeline ; -- Introduction: I can also paint ; -- 1. Childhood -- 2. Apprentice -- 3. On his own -- 4. Milan -- 5. Leonardo's notebooks -- 6. Court entertainer -- 7. Personal life -- 8. Vitruvian Man -- 9. The horse monument -- 10. Scientist -- 11. Birds and flight -- 12. The mechanical arts -- 13. Math -- 14. The nature of man -- 15. Virgin of the Rocks -- 16. The Milan portraits -- 17. The science of art -- 18. The Last Supper -- 19. Personal turmoil -- 20. Florence again -- 21. Saint Anne -- 22. Paintings lost and found -- 23. Cesare Borgia -- 24. Hydraulic engineer -- 25. Michelangelo and the lost Battles -- 26. Return to Milan -- 27. Anatomy, round two -- 28. The world and its waters -- 29. Rome -- 30. Pointing the way -- 31. The Mona Lisa -- 32. France -- 33. Conclusion ; -- Coda: Describe the tongue of the woodpecker.
520 _a'To read this magnificent biography of Leonardo da Vinci is to take a tour through the life and works of one of the most extraordinary human beings of all time in the company of the most engaging, informed, and insightful guide imaginable. Walter Isaacson is at once a true scholar and a spellbinding writer. And what a wealth of lessons there are to be learned in these pages.' David McCullough Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo's astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weaves 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. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and technology. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. 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. His creativity, like that of other great innovators, came from having wide-ranging passions. He peeled flesh off the faces of cadavers, drew the muscles that move the lips, and then painted history's most memorable smile. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper. Isaacson also describes how Leonardo's lifelong enthusiasm for staging theatrical productions informed his paintings and inventions. 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 of instilling, both in ourselves and our children, not just received knowledge but a willingness to question it-to be imaginative and, like talented misfits and rebels in any era, to think different.
650 _a Leonardo, -- da Vinci, -- 1452-1519. Leonardo -- da Vinci -- 1452-1519 Artists -- Italy -- Biography.
942 _cBK