Do you think you know what Leonardo knew?
In his (da Vinci’s) notebooks, you can see the connections between his love of theatre, engineering, anatomy, optics, geology, math, painting and drawing. Walter Isaacson
What could Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs have in common? Both combined their penchant for the arts as well as science to create works that excelled in the realm of both — an aspect that fascinates former Time and CNN journalist and author Walter Isaacson, who, after penning a hugely successful biography of the Apple founder (preceded by impressive efforts at revisiting the lives and legacies of Henry Kissinger and Benjamin Franklin), recently came out with a memoir, Leonardo da Vinci, on the life and times of the Renaissance artist. The book’s release nearly coincided with an interesting time for the UAE when the Louvre Abu Dhabi announced it had acquired the painting Salvator Mundi, a rare depiction of Jesus Christ as the savior of the world. In a conversation with Khaleej Times, Isaacson deconstructs da Vinci’s craft and the genius behind Salvator Mundi.
What was the real challenge, if any, in recreating the image of a man who remains as popular as he is mysterious? The challenge was not to see him merely as a painter and also not to treat his art and engineering as separate endeavours. By using his notebooks, I could follow the beautiful way he interwove art and science. That is the essence of creativity. You can see the connections between his love of theatre, engineering, anatomy, optics, geology, math, painting and drawing. For him, it was all beautiful.
Arts and sciences come together to inform his art. Which of these two aspects of his work interested you? I do not think he made a distinction between the two, and I tried not to as well. His engineering and science were about the beauty of nature, and so was his artwork. Vitruvian Man, the man in the circle and square, is a symbol of that connection.
A number of his works were left unfinished. What do you think da Vinci’s distractions would have cost him as an artist? His distractions meant that he did not finish many paintings. But his distractions help make him a genius rather than merely a prolific craftsman. He could have churned out more works if he had not been distracted by science and math and optics. But he would not have been Leonardo da Vinci if he was that way. And I don’t think he would have accomplished the Mona Lisa. There is an interesting case you make for the Mona Lisa to be a work of augmented reality. Can you elaborate on that? The smile is interactive. It changes every time you look at it. This is because of his knowledge of how the retina of our eyes see detail. And it was because of the way he painted layer after layer of thin brushstrokes over 16 years. Every time you look at the smile, it is different.
What sort of insights does Codex Leicester provide into the mind of Leonardo da Vinci? The Codex Leicester shows how he was open to changing his mind when he got new evidence. At first he thought that the springs on the top of mountains got there the same way the blood in our bodies gets to our head. That’s because he loved the analogy between human bodies and the body of the earth. But the more he experimented with siphons and the flows of fluids, he realised that mountain streams could not work that way. So he came up with the theory of evaporation and rains causing mountain streams, which is true. It was the beginning of the scientific methods: see an analogy, form a theory, test the theory with experiments and observation, revise the theory if the evidence requires.
What makes Salvator Mundi so special? With his studies of perspective at the time, he was exploring sharpness or acuity perspective. He said at a certain distance, as an object nears the focal point of our eyes at about our arm’s length, the lines of that object are much sharper. He does that with the right hand of Jesus. By making it so sharp it seems to come out of the panel and bless us. It makes a two-dimensional panel look three-dimensional, and gives the painting an intimate quality.
You have delved on how the orb in Salvator Mundi does not produce distortions. Is it a case of oversight or there is something more to it? In my book I argue that he is trying to show the miraculous quality of Salvator Mundi, Christ as Savior of the world, and that nothing he touches is distorted.