Salvador Dali, Woman With a Head of Roses, 1935.
Leonardo da Vinci.
Today, I am going to an exhibit on da Vinci.
A page from Leonardo’s journal showing his study of a foetus in the womb. (c. 1510)
What excites me most about Leonardo da Vinci:
- He studied arts as well as natural philosophy, a science and art fuse that just attracts me to people. Over the years, he comprised 13,000 pages of notes and drawings in a journal, that he carried in his travels. I love people who keep journals of just random observations, that aren’t like, “Today, I went to the mall and talked to Joey, blahblah..”
- His journals are mostly written in mirror-image cursive. Didn’t Dali do this as well? Either way, they said it was because he was left-handed and it might have been more comfortable for him to write from right to left.
- He loves anatomy. So, with his amazing ability to paint and draw, he came up with killer diagrams such as the anatomical study of an arm, or the one most people know about, The Vitruvian Man (c. 1485)
- He loves rocks and fossils, and just seemed to have an overall understanding and love for nature that most do not. He not only wanted to immerse himself in it but he wanted to figure out how and why it all worked the way it did. In one of his journal pages, he drew rock formations. It’s a beautiful thing.
- He speculated many things that were way advanced for his time. He refuted that shells and other living creatures that were found at rocks on tops of mountains did not come in by the “Great Flood” and noted that it was not of sound reason. This was simply because the was nowhere for the water to go when it receded. I love arguing against the Bible, so much. I could go on with this, but I won’t.. yet.
I could write on and on about him, if I had more time, but for now I must leave. Maybe if I get enough likes on this post, I will write more later.
Here’s a quote:
“Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation … even so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind.”
