A TRIBUTE TO LEONARDO DA VINCI

    A month ago, I came across a remarkable presentation in SlideShare.net, available at http://www.slideshare.net/bunky34/design-like-davinci-sxsw-2013 for reference. The presentation specifies how Leonardo Da Vinci's design habits can be adopted even today and is readable, if only in that context. To me, it revealed a lot more about Da Vinci himself.

    I shall explain why I am curious about Da Vinci now :

    Like most others, I knew about his most famous painting Mona Lisa and Dan Brown's book "The Da Vinci Code" provided further insight into Da Vinci's personality. In school, a teacher I respect had spoken of two geniuses : the first was Mendeleef (or Mendeleev, as Google prompts). Mendeleev was a chemist who brought structure into the organization of elements. Da Vinci was the second genius that my teacher referred to and I remember him telling us that Da Vinci could draw a perfect circle in free hand. I do not remember in what context Da Vinci came up in class, but I do remember paying attention to my teacher saying that Da Vinci was able to draw a circle without any compass and thinking : "Wow, this guy must have been awesome !"

    So when I read "The Da Vinci Code" or went through the SlideShare.net presentation, it was like a re-affirmation to me. Here was hard proof of Da Vinci's genius ! The presentation is around 36 MB in size and contains 131 slides, but I recommend going through it. I liked it and also showed it to my wife. She said she may share some of the concepts with her students in college !

    I have a habit of writing quotations on my whiteboard at work and tomorrow, it will probably be one by Leonardo Da Vinci. 15-Apr-13 is his 561st birth anniversary ! I plan to write this quotation by him on my whiteboard at work : "The worst evil which can befall the artist is that his work should appear good in his own eyes."
 
    The second trigger for this blog is a program called "Ancient Aliens" on The History Channel on TV available at http://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens. By chance, I started watching it one Saturday afternoon after I had viewed the SlideShare.net presentation and I was hooked !

    Earlier, if people believed in traditions blindly, the rational people (like me !!) would scoff and say "This is superstition !". Nowadays, if the same superstitions are couched in modern scientific terms, the same rational people (again: like me !!) will believe it ! So, the holodeck in Star Trek (see http://www.startrek.com/database_article/holodeck) and the warp drive (http://www.howstuffworks.com/warp-speed.htm) sound and look (to me !) more believable, though the concepts may be as fanciful as age old superstitions ! The idea of science in "science fiction" fascinates me. When the serial "The X-files" was aired on Indian television, I absolutely loved the ambiguity of the stories : perhaps, there was a blood sucking animal called the chupacabra ; perhaps, there was not ! Perhaps, aliens did visit us in Roswell ; perhaps they did not ! The two protagonists in the serial represented the two viewpoints of (blind ?!) rationalism and (gullible ?!) openness and made for a good watch, in my opinion.

    In the same manner, when a channel as credible as the History Channel suggests that aliens might have passed on theories to few thinkers' heads, the idea appeals to me ! In Leonardo Da Vinci's case, the channel quotes him as saying that he used to lie on his bed and focus on the shadows cast by the flickering flame of a candle on the ceiling and fall into a trance. Srinivas Ramanujam had no formal educational background of mathematics and stated that the equations would come to him in dreams

    This episode on History Channel again made me wonder about Da Vinci and I started reading more about him, using the Internet as a source. The rest of this blog represents my quest to understand about Da Vinci's achievements.

    I shall not touch upon his personal life or whether he was right or wrong in doing what he did. He dissected bodies, which may sound acceptable to us, but at the time of the Renaissance, it was completely unacceptable. I don't want to judge his morality, but only want to examine his genius.

    Leonardo Da Vinci meaning "Leonardo of Vinci" was born in Vinci and was an illegitimate son of a notary. He was left handed and had a flair for art from his childhood. He became an apprentice of an artist called Verrocchio and developed various skills like drafting, metal working, etc. His innate talent for drawing and painting also flourished. His biography is available at http://www.leonardoda-vinci.org/biography.html for reference.

    As the SlideShare presentation shows, Leonardo Da Vinci is most renowned for his paintings. However, there are only 30 finished paintings to his credit ! To create these 30 paintings, he had written many sketches. In fact, in all, Da Vinci wrote around a mind boggling 13,000 sketches ! He made those sketches alone and then had them reviewed by experts. All his sketches have notes, typically written in mirror image, as made famous in Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code".

    Some of his sketches also reveal Da Vinci's engineering bent of mind. Aged 36, he designed a flying machine. He also designed an eight barelled machine gun and later the first tank ! This was his second avatar, as seen in http://inventors.about.com/od/dstartinventors/ig/Inventions-of-Leonardo-DaVinci/. Leonardo Davinci had conceptualized several inventions, which would have seemed very foolish or even outlandish at the time.

    The presentation indicates that Da Vinci dissected human corpses. This gave him insight into the functioning of the human body. He wanted to publish his understanding of the body, as seen in http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/exhibitions/leonardo-da-vinci-anatomist but he was unable to do so. My own impression is that some of what he understood of the human body is also reflected in his paintings and art.

    Leonardo Da Vinci was also a scientist. In particular, he understood optics and physics and again he was able to apply these ideas in his paintings. The idea of perspective in his sketches and painting must have owed a lot to his study of optics and physics.

    The book "The Da Vinci Code" touches upon Da Vinci's relationship with mathematics. The website http://www.goldennumber.net/art-composition-design/ shows how the golden ratio (1.618:1) is applied in the painting "The Last Supper". Apart from the number, Da Vinci was also familiar with the geometry of shapes. The website http://www.georgehart.com/virtual-polyhedra/leonardo.html shows how he used solid edges to enliven 3D images of complex shapes.

    Thus, Lenoardo Da Vinci was a painter, inventor, scientist and a mathematician. He lived for 67 years and in those 67 years, he established his credibility in those different fields. It is small wonder that the man is considered as one of the greatest thinkers that ever lived.

    In my head, what stands out his ability to use information from one field and transport it to another. When I studied about optics, I thought only of physics and lenses and mirrors, but I rarely thought of using that information to explore the tricks of light and shade. Leonardo Da Vinci did that in his paintings and art ! Similarly, he applied mathematics in his art as well. Conversely, I suppose that he must have also used his artistic bent of mind in designing his inventions ! It is this ability to "cross-apply" knowledge that made Da Vinci stand out as an artist and inventor.

    On the eve of his birth anniversary, I mentally salute him and hope he continues to inspire generations of people.