Think Like Da Vinci: 7 Easy Steps to Boosting Your Everyday Genius. Michael Gelb

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СКАЧАТЬ River valley, dated August 5, 1473, is brimming with the forces of nature.

      Philipson and other scholars all seem to agree, however, that more important than any of his specific accomplishments is the example of the man himself. Leonardo offers the supreme inspiration for reach to exceed grasp.

MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS

      It would take an encyclopedia to begin to do justice to the full scope of Leonardo’s accomplishments. We can get a glimpse of some of his most notable achievements through the categories of art, invention, military engineering, and science.

      Leonardo the artist transformed the direction of art. He was the first Western artist to make landscape the prime subject of a painting. He pioneered the use of oil paints and the application of perspective, chiaroscuro, contrapposto, sfumato, and many other innovative and influential methods.

      In a sentiment echoed later by Freud, biographical novelist Dmitry Merezhkovsky, author of The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci, compared Leonardo to “a man who wakes too early, while it is still dark and all around him are still sleeping.”

      Leonardo’s Mona Lisa and The Last Supper are recognized universally as two of the greatest paintings ever produced. They are certainly the most famous. Leonardo also created other wonderful paintings including The Virgin of the Rocks, The Madonna and Child with St. Anne, The Adoration of the Magi, St. John the Baptist, and his portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci that hangs in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.

      Although Leonardo’s paintings are few in number, his drawings are abundant and equally magnificent. Like the Mona Lisa, Leonardo’s Canon of Proportion has become a universally familiar icon. His studies for The Madonna and Child with St. Anne and the heads of the apostles in The Last Supper, along with his drawings of flowers, anatomy, horses, flight, and flowing water, are unmatched.

      Leonardo was also renowned as an architect and a sculptor. Most of his architectural work focused on general principles of design, although he did consult on a number of practical projects including cathedrals in Milan and Pavia, and the French king’s château at Blois. While he is believed to have contributed to a number of sculptures, scholars agree that the only existing sculptures definitely touched by the maestro’s hand are three bronzes on the north door of the Baptistery in Florence. The Saint John the Baptist Preaching to a Levite and a Pharisee was created in collaboration with the sculptor Rustici.

      The figure of Plato, king of philosophers, in Raphael’s masterpiece The School of Athens is believed to be based on Leonardo.

      Leonardo’s design for a mortar is bursting with creativity.

      Leonardo the inventor made plans for a flying machine, a helicopter, a parachute, and many other marvels including the extendable ladder (still in use by fire departments today), the three-speed gear shift, a machine for cutting threads in screws, the bicycle, an adjustable monkey wrench, a snorkel, hydraulic jacks, the world’s first revolving stage, locks for a canal system, a horizontal waterwheel, folding furniture, an olive press, a number of automated musical instruments, a water-powered alarm clock, a therapeutic armchair, and a crane for clearing ditches.

      More than any single invention, Leonardo deserves credit for pioneering the concept of automation. He designed myriad machines that could save labor and increase productivity. Although some were fanciful and impractical, others, like his automated looms, were portents of the Industrial Revolution.

      As a military engineer Da Vinci made plans for weapons that would be deployed four hundred years later, including the armored tank, machine gun, mortar, guided missile, and submarine. As far as we know, however, nothing he designed was ever used to injure anyone during his lifetime. A man of peace, he referred to war as “pazzia bestialissima – beastly madness,” and found bloodshed “infinitely atrocious.” His instruments of war were designed “to preserve the chief gift of nature, which is liberty,” he wrote. At times he shared them reluctantly, accompanying one design with a written glimpse of his ambivalence: “I do not wish to divulge or publish this because of the evil nature of men.”

      Leonardo the scientist is the subject of considerable scholarly debate. Some scholars suggest that if Leonardo had organized his scientific thoughts and published them, he would have had a massive influence on the development of science. Others argue that he was so far ahead of his time that his work would not have been appreciated even if it was formulated in comprehensible general theories. While Leonardo’s science may best be appreciated for its intrinsic value as an expression of his quest for truth, most scholars agree that he can be credited with significant contributions to several disciplines:

      Scythed chariot and “tank”.

       Anatomy

      

He pioneered the discipline of modern comparative anatomy.

      

He was the first to draw parts of the body in cross section.

      

He drew the most detailed and comprehensive representations of humans and horses.

      

He conducted unprecedented scientific studies of the child in the womb.

      

He was the first to make casts of the brain and the ventricles of the heart.

       Botany

      

He pioneered modern botanical science.

      

He described geotropism (the gravitational attraction of the earth on some plants) and heliotropism (the attraction of plants toward the sun).

      

He noted that the age of a tree corresponds to the number of rings in its cross section.

      

He was the first to describe the system of leaf arrangement in plants.

       Geology and Physics

      

He made significant discoveries about the nature of fossilization, and he was the first to document the phenomenon of soil erosion. As he wrote, “Water gnaws at mountains and fills valleys.”

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