Man of Unparalleled Genius
The story of Leonardo da Vinci is a sad one of a luminous life of brilliant achievement, yet also the story of a genius who recognized his incredible abilities and who anticipated acknowledgement through an accepted social pattern of the day of royal patronage of outstanding artistic talents. For him, never to be fully realized. This unbelievably brilliant man was born in 1452 of an illegitimate union of the eldest son of a wealthy and established family of lawyers in the village of Vinci in the Florentine republic, with a young peasant woman.
His father's family recognized the illegitimate child and brought him into their home, away from his mother, raised with the other children of the family. His father, Ser Piero, was emotionally distant, his mother absent, but he lived among an extended family of aunts, uncles and other children, accepted as family. At a time when Leonardo was a young boy who loved to wander in the countryside on his own making natural discoveries, he eschewed a formal education available to young men of his social ranking. For the rest of his life he regretted that boyish decline of a formal education, especially not having learned Latin, the lack of which actually impaired his future intellectual advancement as well as his social acceptance.
To someone looking back through documented history at what is known about this truly extraordinary human being, it's hard to believe that he was frustrated at every turn in his life by lack of recognition, that he was forced by material need to exercise self-abnegation to a humbling degree in ongoing attempts to ingratiate himself with wealthy patrons whose practise it was to sustain the arts not necessarily for the love of art, but for the reflected glory monumental or famed art would reflect upon them personally.
When Leonardo's artistic abilities proved inadequate to gain him patronage he turned to the design of weapons of war in the always-unrealized hopes that his mechanical and creative genius realized through inventions surpassing any that had hitherto been devised such as assault and siege machines, submersible ships, armoured vehicles would gain him employment and recompense. When that failed he turned to architecture, accomplishing a high degree of expertise that still denied him recognition.
Leonardo turned to music, was able to visualize different ways of producing musical sounds and created musical instruments unlike others of the day, capable of producing unique and beautiful sounds. In the process he became himself a master of the lute and a brilliant lutenist. One of his peculiar and beautiful musical instruments served as an introduction to the court of Lodovico Sforza by Lorenzo de' Medici who himself evinced little interest in Leonardo's brilliance. Even there his work was held to be of little value.
The constant wars between Italy, France and Spain and the ongoing intrigues, not the least of which emanated from the various popes of the time within the Vatican (whose own sons were elevated to stations of high dignity both secular and divine) meant an ever-evolving social and political landscape, all of which Leonardo, along with other artists of the time had to adjust their aspirations and allegiances to. Toward the end of his life, the recognition long denied him came not from Florentine nobles, the place of his birth, but France, under a young and impulsive Francis I, who gave Leonardo the grand commissions so long denied him (and which, at his advanced age, he could no longer produce) and granted him a princely stipend, along with a chateau in which to live out his waning years.
In the intervening years, Leonarda da Vinci's compelling cerebral search brought him to master algebra, geometry history, anatomy, mechanics, and to produce all manner of inventions. The extent of the man's unappreciated genius is beyond belief. Apart from his mastery of oil painting and sculpture he was an accomplished architect and civil engineer, a philosopher, mathmetician, inventor, musician. His curiosity knew no bounds. He studied ancient texts for clues to answers about questions which vexed him and often based his own research and discoveries on these; often enough found them wanting and went on from there. Nothing escaped his curious mind.
His life was a difficult one. Despite his many and obvious talents he had few commissions and struggled to make ends meet; something he contended with for most of his life, even once he became famous in his later years. He seemed always to be overlooked when commissions were being handed out while others less worthy were rewarded. He made every effort to curry favour with those who could help him through their largesse, but nothing quite seemed to work in his favour. His experiences led him to bitterness and while still a relatively young man he became a budding misanthrope, expecting little of his fellow man.
Despite which, even with those low expectations he was always let down when events proved his undoing. His is an elevating story of a genius, but that also of a sad life in many ways. Elevating if only because it points out how one individual could be so amazingly creative and cerebrally brilliant. He was especially bitter about the success and renown granted to others, of singular mediocrity. All of which sounds rather familiar, proving that nothing much seems to change about human behaviour.
He was admired during his lifetime by other artists of genius, such as Giorgio Vasari, Raffaello Sanzio, Benvenuto Cellini, Andrea del Verrocchio, but they too were often in the position of being commissioned to produce great works of art, yet suffered privation and want as their patrons seldom saw fit to relax their purse strings. Some of Leonardo's works of art were never completed, others have not survived the ages, some were lauded yet the materials required to bring them to fruition were never provided, sidelined - like the bronze for his monumental horse - to conduct the war of the moment.
His enthusiasm to achieve a life of artistic and scientific distinction was forever denied him by such opportunities lost through the intervention of social upheavals of war and conquest. Yet he continued to strive to accommodate his genius to an ever-changing political, social and religious elite. He endeavoured, by attempts at ingratiation, to entice wealthy sponsors throughout his unrewarded life.
His entreaties, his plans, his talents and his genius were always overlooked. Small commissions and even smaller payments for services rendered enabled him to barely endure while he bitterly witnessed lesser talents than his own feted and honoured and riches lavished upon them. Michaelangelo, himself a master sculptor of genius, and at the same time a rival for important commissions, succeeded where Leonardo did not, and while Leonardo harboured no ill will toward the younger artist, Michaelangelo heaped scorn and derision upon the older man.
Leonardo's despair, his constant disappointments, led him to view humankind and human behaviour in the darkest of lights. He became, finally, a fully-fledged misanthrope. Yet his immense curiosity about every field of science, anatomy, geometry, philosphy, mechanics led him to devote himself to study. He abandoned art for long periods of his life in favour of study which became so much a passion in his life. His universal embrace of learning and the production of learned treatises set him apart in a world already blessed with a surfeit of outstanding artists, philosophers and scientists of astonishing genius and ability.
Finally, old, frail and ill, no longer able to trust his once-strong body, his all-encompassing mind to reflect his undying devotion to educating himself and the world, to producing art of unspeakably divine beauty, he sought more and more to isolate himself from the outside world.
His father's family recognized the illegitimate child and brought him into their home, away from his mother, raised with the other children of the family. His father, Ser Piero, was emotionally distant, his mother absent, but he lived among an extended family of aunts, uncles and other children, accepted as family. At a time when Leonardo was a young boy who loved to wander in the countryside on his own making natural discoveries, he eschewed a formal education available to young men of his social ranking. For the rest of his life he regretted that boyish decline of a formal education, especially not having learned Latin, the lack of which actually impaired his future intellectual advancement as well as his social acceptance.
To someone looking back through documented history at what is known about this truly extraordinary human being, it's hard to believe that he was frustrated at every turn in his life by lack of recognition, that he was forced by material need to exercise self-abnegation to a humbling degree in ongoing attempts to ingratiate himself with wealthy patrons whose practise it was to sustain the arts not necessarily for the love of art, but for the reflected glory monumental or famed art would reflect upon them personally.
When Leonardo's artistic abilities proved inadequate to gain him patronage he turned to the design of weapons of war in the always-unrealized hopes that his mechanical and creative genius realized through inventions surpassing any that had hitherto been devised such as assault and siege machines, submersible ships, armoured vehicles would gain him employment and recompense. When that failed he turned to architecture, accomplishing a high degree of expertise that still denied him recognition.
Leonardo turned to music, was able to visualize different ways of producing musical sounds and created musical instruments unlike others of the day, capable of producing unique and beautiful sounds. In the process he became himself a master of the lute and a brilliant lutenist. One of his peculiar and beautiful musical instruments served as an introduction to the court of Lodovico Sforza by Lorenzo de' Medici who himself evinced little interest in Leonardo's brilliance. Even there his work was held to be of little value.
The constant wars between Italy, France and Spain and the ongoing intrigues, not the least of which emanated from the various popes of the time within the Vatican (whose own sons were elevated to stations of high dignity both secular and divine) meant an ever-evolving social and political landscape, all of which Leonardo, along with other artists of the time had to adjust their aspirations and allegiances to. Toward the end of his life, the recognition long denied him came not from Florentine nobles, the place of his birth, but France, under a young and impulsive Francis I, who gave Leonardo the grand commissions so long denied him (and which, at his advanced age, he could no longer produce) and granted him a princely stipend, along with a chateau in which to live out his waning years.
In the intervening years, Leonarda da Vinci's compelling cerebral search brought him to master algebra, geometry history, anatomy, mechanics, and to produce all manner of inventions. The extent of the man's unappreciated genius is beyond belief. Apart from his mastery of oil painting and sculpture he was an accomplished architect and civil engineer, a philosopher, mathmetician, inventor, musician. His curiosity knew no bounds. He studied ancient texts for clues to answers about questions which vexed him and often based his own research and discoveries on these; often enough found them wanting and went on from there. Nothing escaped his curious mind.
His life was a difficult one. Despite his many and obvious talents he had few commissions and struggled to make ends meet; something he contended with for most of his life, even once he became famous in his later years. He seemed always to be overlooked when commissions were being handed out while others less worthy were rewarded. He made every effort to curry favour with those who could help him through their largesse, but nothing quite seemed to work in his favour. His experiences led him to bitterness and while still a relatively young man he became a budding misanthrope, expecting little of his fellow man.
Despite which, even with those low expectations he was always let down when events proved his undoing. His is an elevating story of a genius, but that also of a sad life in many ways. Elevating if only because it points out how one individual could be so amazingly creative and cerebrally brilliant. He was especially bitter about the success and renown granted to others, of singular mediocrity. All of which sounds rather familiar, proving that nothing much seems to change about human behaviour.
He was admired during his lifetime by other artists of genius, such as Giorgio Vasari, Raffaello Sanzio, Benvenuto Cellini, Andrea del Verrocchio, but they too were often in the position of being commissioned to produce great works of art, yet suffered privation and want as their patrons seldom saw fit to relax their purse strings. Some of Leonardo's works of art were never completed, others have not survived the ages, some were lauded yet the materials required to bring them to fruition were never provided, sidelined - like the bronze for his monumental horse - to conduct the war of the moment.
His enthusiasm to achieve a life of artistic and scientific distinction was forever denied him by such opportunities lost through the intervention of social upheavals of war and conquest. Yet he continued to strive to accommodate his genius to an ever-changing political, social and religious elite. He endeavoured, by attempts at ingratiation, to entice wealthy sponsors throughout his unrewarded life.
His entreaties, his plans, his talents and his genius were always overlooked. Small commissions and even smaller payments for services rendered enabled him to barely endure while he bitterly witnessed lesser talents than his own feted and honoured and riches lavished upon them. Michaelangelo, himself a master sculptor of genius, and at the same time a rival for important commissions, succeeded where Leonardo did not, and while Leonardo harboured no ill will toward the younger artist, Michaelangelo heaped scorn and derision upon the older man.
Leonardo's despair, his constant disappointments, led him to view humankind and human behaviour in the darkest of lights. He became, finally, a fully-fledged misanthrope. Yet his immense curiosity about every field of science, anatomy, geometry, philosphy, mechanics led him to devote himself to study. He abandoned art for long periods of his life in favour of study which became so much a passion in his life. His universal embrace of learning and the production of learned treatises set him apart in a world already blessed with a surfeit of outstanding artists, philosophers and scientists of astonishing genius and ability.
Finally, old, frail and ill, no longer able to trust his once-strong body, his all-encompassing mind to reflect his undying devotion to educating himself and the world, to producing art of unspeakably divine beauty, he sought more and more to isolate himself from the outside world.
"His masterpieces destroyed or decaying, his vast knowledge unutilized, the immense mass of scientific material he had been collecting all his life preserved only in chests and boxes, in incomplete records written in a secret script and, in their existing form, quite inaccessible o mankind - "if they come to light," wrote de Beatis, and Leonardo began to ask himself whether they ever would come to light. He no longer nursed the illusion that he could complete his many works for publication in his lifetime. He began to admit that he had attempted a superhuman task, to realize that he was defeated. He knew the forces that had defeated him - the wearing struggle for existence, the maze of chance influences and events that pull a man this way and that, the arbitrariness of fate." -- Leonardo da Vinci - The Tragic Pursuit of Perfection by Antonina Vallentin, c.1938
posted by Pieface @ 1:45 PM
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