Leonardo Da Vinci — The case for a wandering mind
Why the Renaissance Masters’ lack of focus was the source of his genius
As Adam Smith told us in The Wealth of Nations, the capitalist economic system is predicated on the division and specialization of labour. We see this hidden force guiding our lives from the moment we enrol at school. Each year, from our GCSE’s, to our A-Levels, to our degrees, our scope narrows and the subjects we take dwindle. By the time we reach our graduation we are often fast-tracked down a few selected career paths. When we embark on those, we follow our strengths and circumstances and we specialize further.
As such, in today’s professional world ‘focus’ is seen as a cardinal virtue. A recipe for a successful career or a thriving business. The economy values specialists. We have all heard the cautionary phrase, ‘Jack of all trades and Master of None.’ There is a logic to this, the emergence of the Internet has meant that competitors’ products and services are only a click away for consumers. It pays to narrow our focus and be in the top 1% of a specific field. The best of the best will always be in demand. This is the common narrative.
The reality is that the coming industrial revolution, propagated by AI and Robotics, focus and efficiency will perhaps not be best served in the hands of human beings.
So where does that leave us?
Let me make the case for the unfocused.
Leonardo Da Vinci was the archetypal Renaissance Genius. As an artist, he was also notoriously inefficient. Most of his work was left uncompleted as he often found himself side-tracked by his other interests. Almost always, he found himself delving down rabbit holes, completely unrelated to his work, but pulled by his insatiable curiosity. When working on piece a work for a wealthy patron, he was notorious for missing deadlines, much to his employer’s frustration. In the few cases when he did finish his commissioned pieces, he often didn’t submit to them to his paying clients. Take the Mona Lisa for an example, which he held onto after it was ready for submission and sale. He actually kept it for the rest of life, periodically applying brushstrokes as he saw fit.
Although this description would seem to describe Leonardo’s shortcomings and failures, there is a strong argument that the very same character traits are what made him the genius that painted some of the most celebrated pieces of art in the world.
Take the Salvador Mundi, the ‘Savior of the World’. In the early 2000’s Leonardo’s long-lost depiction of Jesus was rediscovered. It was the first piece of the Renaissance masters’ work to be put on sale for 100 years. At Christie’s, in 2017, it sold for a world record $450 million. The most expensive piece of art purchased at auction. A testament to Leonardo’s enduring appeal and legacy.
The image encapsulates how Leonardo’s wandering mind informed his work and brought it to life.
Take a look at the manner in which Jesus’s hair falls and curls in the painting. The intricacy, and detail here are often a beautiful signature of Leonardo’s portraits.
His depiction of the saviours’ hair drew inspiration from his observations of nature. In particular his deep investigations of water. Understanding the movement of water became such a fascination for him, he even went as far as writing a 72 page treatise on the subject. It came to be known as the Codex Leicester and was bought by Bill Gates for close to $30 million dollars in 1990. His writing touches on the movement and erosion of rivers to architectural recommendations for bridge design, all the way to hypotheses of the presence of water on the surface of the moon. He spends a great deal of time and space studying and sketching the effects and movement of water in contracted spaces, and the eddies and whirlpools that can form when water is diverted from its customary path. These directly informed his illustration of Jesus’ curls of brown hair. In his own words, quoted from Walter Isaacson’s excellent book; Leonardo Da Vinci: The Biography;
‘The curling motion of the surface of the water resembles the behaviour of hair, which has two motions, one of which depends on the weight of the strands, the other on the direction of its revolving; thus water makes eddies, one part of which is due to the impetus of the principla current, and the other is due to the incidental motion and return flow.’
Leonardo’s great joy came from finding the linkages between disparate topics that took his interest. He used his observations in one area to inform his creations in another. This was only possible because he allowed himself the liberty to jump down areas of interest that at times may have seem like distractions.
At the same time as Leonardo was conducting his investigations into water and hydraulics, he was immersing himself in a relentless study of human anatomy. In the early 1500’s, whilst in Florence, he spent some 5 years dissecting cadavers at the Santa Maria Nuova hospital. The 250 drawings he made from this period, as well as the 13000 words of notes to accompany them, are some of his most astonishing and detailed.
His investigations spanned from detailed studies of the heart and its’ valves, the spinal cord to the muscular system. As an artist, it was only natural that he was particularly fascinated by the anatomy of the facial muscles and their ability to convey emotion. He provided perhaps the most detailed examination of the lips and muscles associated to their movement of the time. His drawings on this subject are the first known depictions of the anatomy of the human smile. He writes;
‘The muscles which move the lips are more numerous than in any other animal.’ One will always find as many muscles as there are positions of the lips and many more that serve to undo these positions’ .
Take another glance at the Salvador Mundi. Look at Jesus’ lips. Is he smiling, or frowning? Is he angry, sad or pensive? It is difficult to tell. This enigmatic portrayal is of course not unique to this portrait of Leonardo’s. Perhaps his most famous painting, the Mona Lisa has enchanted viewers for centuries with her mysterious smile.
Leonardo’s ability to create ‘psychological portraits’, with a real sense of complexity, was unique for his time and since. It seems to me he was able to create such inscrutable faces because of his investigations into human facial anatomy and especially that of the smile. Again, his wandering mind, going down the rabbit hole, pulled by his varying curiosities proved to inform his art.
As well as the enigma brought forth by the depiction of Jesus’ face, there is also deeply psychological aspect to Leonardo’s portrait as a whole. I think a great deal of that comes from the manner in which he uses light and shadows in his depiction.
At the time there was a general consensus in the artistic community that portrayals of people and nature in painting should be done with clear delineated lines. Leonardo contested this. He believed that in order to depict the subject more accurately in 3 dimensions, ‘blurred lines’ and a heavy use of shadows was required. This trademark technique of his came to be known as ‘sfumato’. In his own words;
The primary goal of a painter, ‘is to make a flat surface display a body as if modelled and separated from this plane.’ This crowning achievement of painting ‘arises from light and shade’…’Shadows appear to me to be of supreme importance in perspective, because without them opaque and solid bodies will be ill defined’ — p 266 Isaacson
As was Leonardo’s way, his curiosity pulled him towards an almost obsessive study of light, perspectives and optics. In hindsight, perhaps his is most important contribution to the study is that of the ‘acuity perspective’, how objects appear less distinct the further away they are. In his own words;
‘You must diminish the sharpness of those objects in proportion to their increasing distance from the eye of the spectator’… ‘The parts that are near in the foreground should be finished in a bold determined manner; but those in the distance must be unfinished and confused in their outlines.’
We can see some manifestations of these studies in the Salvador Mundi. Christ’s right hand, protruding towards the viewer is seen sharply and clearly. Jesus’ features further away, his face and head are less distinct. To demonstrate this, they are encased in Leonardo’s trademark ‘sfumato’ — blurred lines. The overall effect is to give Christ a 3-dimensional feel, which makes the portrait seem more alive and at the same time somewhat haunting.
The Salvador Mundi gives us some insight into Leonardo Da Vinci’s ever wandering mind. Once a topic had touched on Leonardo’s curiosity, he would pursue it relentlessly. His investigations often went into such detail that it would have been a struggle to see how it was directly related to his work. Nevertheless, his expeditions into understanding the mysteries of the world gave him an overarching insight and understanding that would enchance the art that he created.
Whilst Leonardo was painting the Last Supper on the Santa Maria Delle Grazie in Milan, there is a quote he gave his patron who was growing frustrated with his lack from progress the piece he had commissioned for him. It encapsulates how Leonardo thought about his own ‘inefficiency’ and tendency to be frequently distracted;
‘Men of Lofty Genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least… for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form’.
If there is any criticism that posterity has placed on Leonardo it is that he didn’t produce enough finished work. His productivity would certainly have been enhanced if he had sat in his studio everyday, from 9 to 5, but it is also likely that they work that he produced wouldn’t have been so inexplicably moving and profound. His own life would certainly have been less interesting.
This story is published in Noteworthy, where 10,000+ readers come every day to learn about the people & ideas shaping the products we love.
Follow our publication to see more product & design stories featured by the Journal team.
