Complex artist is beautifully distilled
Walter Isaacson, a former editor of Time and current professor of history at Tulane University, has warmed up for his current subject by taking on a few intimidating souls: Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Kissinger and Steve Jobs.
But Leonardo da Vinci constitutes a class of his own.
He is a challenge for the biographer for two opposing reasons. First, da Vinci’s 15th-century life, though documented, quickly entered the realm of myth, so even relatively contemporary accounts can't be entirely trusted.
Second, thousands of pages of his notebooks survive, all thoroughly covered with sketches, diagrams and “notes and scribbles.”
Isaacson happily dives into the intimidating mass of material and emerges with a biography that’s massively comprehensive and deeply personal.
It is also gorgeously illustrated with high-quality, full-color reproductions of da Vinci's work and with photographs of places and examples of others' work.
Which means that, when the author discusses da Vinci's artistic work or scientific theories, the reader can easily go back and forth between description and visual.
Isaacson mostly follows da Vinci's life in chronological order, from his childhood as the illegitimate son of a notary through his work for several patrons — which took him from city to city in Italy.
Along the way, he leaves plenty of room for detouring into richly detailed studies of various aspects of the artist's work and for placing da Vinci into historical context.
The “gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical” artist, Isaacson says, was surely a genius — but an approachable one, not one on the unattainable ■ order of Einstein.
The source of da Vinci's intelligence, the author suggests, was an insatiable curiosity about the world, which easily crossed the artificial boundary between art and science. The visual thinker used drawings and doodles to work out connections between phenomena that others might have thought totally unrelated. Designing an imaginary city took him deep into a study of hydrodynamics; painting a portrait led him to dissect cadaver after cadaver to learn how the mouth muscles work.
While paying attention to the works for which da Vinci is best known, including "The Last Supper" and "Mona Lisa," Isaacson also explores his extensive work as a theater impresario and his desire to be taken seriously as an inventor of military machines, most of which stayed firmly in the realm of the theoretical.
Admiring as he is of his subject, the author also notes his weaknesses. About "The Last Supper," for which da Vinci attempted to use oil paints on a wall that started to flake within a few decades, Isaacson says, “It was innovative in its art and too innovative in its methods. The conception was brilliant but the execution flawed.”
Da Vinci's primary weakness: He started far more projects than he completed, frustrating both his patrons and future art lovers.
Fortunately, the author doesn't share that trait with his book’s hero. His project might have proved daunting to other writers, but Isaacson makes finding the essence of da Vinci's complicated life look easy.