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4.19 AVERAGE
4.19 AVERAGE
It just feels incredibly dull and borderline fawning. I think Da Vinci is a fascinating figure, but this book does not feel objective or true.
Just some quick thoughts on some of the many reasons I've liked everything I've read by Isaacson....
I love his full length conclusions at the end of his works and his added analyses throughout. In his conclusions, he integrates everything he just wrote into great summations, and you can compare your take-aways with his. I've read many biographies and history books that just end...they leave me wanting some opinions about legacies or final thoughts from the subject matter expert. I like re-visiting his books and reading the conclusions as a way to remember the great things within it. Regarding analyses throughout: in the life of Leonardo da Vinci, there are many mysteries and differing opinions on seemingly everything surrounding his work, and hearing Isaacson's opinions and reasons for them after clearly hearing both sides of the story is refreshing.
If you are looking for reasons why this specific Isaacson book is worth reading, entertaining, and definitely 5 stars, I think David McCullough's blurb on the back cover sums it up best:
"To read this magnificent biography of Leonardo da Vinci is to take a tour through the life and works of one of the most extraordinary human beings of all time in the company of the most engaging, informed, and insightful guide imaginable. Walter Isaacson is at once a true scholar and a spellbinding writer. And what a wealth of lessons there are to be learned in these pages."
I love his full length conclusions at the end of his works and his added analyses throughout. In his conclusions, he integrates everything he just wrote into great summations, and you can compare your take-aways with his. I've read many biographies and history books that just end...they leave me wanting some opinions about legacies or final thoughts from the subject matter expert. I like re-visiting his books and reading the conclusions as a way to remember the great things within it. Regarding analyses throughout: in the life of Leonardo da Vinci, there are many mysteries and differing opinions on seemingly everything surrounding his work, and hearing Isaacson's opinions and reasons for them after clearly hearing both sides of the story is refreshing.
If you are looking for reasons why this specific Isaacson book is worth reading, entertaining, and definitely 5 stars, I think David McCullough's blurb on the back cover sums it up best:
"To read this magnificent biography of Leonardo da Vinci is to take a tour through the life and works of one of the most extraordinary human beings of all time in the company of the most engaging, informed, and insightful guide imaginable. Walter Isaacson is at once a true scholar and a spellbinding writer. And what a wealth of lessons there are to be learned in these pages."
informative
slow-paced
3.5 stars
This is a good book on Leonardo da Vinci, even an excellent one. Walter Isaacson is one of my favorite authors of biography. The problem is that if you write the biography of an artist—or in Leonardo's case, a true Renaissance Man—the facts of his/her life are generally fairly boring [Van Gogh being an exception]. Apart from Leonardo's art and notebooks this book is basically, "Leonardo moved to ____ where his patron was _____. He worked on art/science. Then he moved to ____ where his patron was ____, he worked on art/science... Then he died.
So the vast majority of this book is discussing Leonardo's art/notebooks/science investigations, which is fine if you are interested in art/drawing. If not, then you will not find this book riveting [like Isaacson's biographies of Einstein and Jobs are riveting].
Isaacson has a tendency to perhaps over describe, or rather embellish unnecessarily his descriptions of Leonardo's art, which is typical of most art critics/historians, it seems to me. Here is one example:
"Stand before the Mona Lisa, and the historical discussions about how it was commissioned fade into oblivion. As Leonardo worked on it for most of the last sixteen years of his life, it became more than a portrait of an individual. It became universal, a distillation of his accumulated wisdom about the outward manifestations of our inner lives and about connections between ourselves and our world."
Really, Walter? Really? This reads more like hagiography. I've seen the Mona Lisa in the Louvre and no, I did not think it was "a distillation of his accumulated wisdom about the outward manifestations of our inner lives," but then I'm just a member of the bourgeoisie.
Leonardo was an amazing genius across perhaps more disciplines than any man in history, including a theory of the heart that was only proven 500 years later. This alone makes the book worth reading, but I find most biographies of artists like this, a little boring, a lot of hagiography, and a lot of over describing and over imagining of their works of art.
This is a good book on Leonardo da Vinci, even an excellent one. Walter Isaacson is one of my favorite authors of biography. The problem is that if you write the biography of an artist—or in Leonardo's case, a true Renaissance Man—the facts of his/her life are generally fairly boring [Van Gogh being an exception]. Apart from Leonardo's art and notebooks this book is basically, "Leonardo moved to ____ where his patron was _____. He worked on art/science. Then he moved to ____ where his patron was ____, he worked on art/science... Then he died.
So the vast majority of this book is discussing Leonardo's art/notebooks/science investigations, which is fine if you are interested in art/drawing. If not, then you will not find this book riveting [like Isaacson's biographies of Einstein and Jobs are riveting].
Isaacson has a tendency to perhaps over describe, or rather embellish unnecessarily his descriptions of Leonardo's art, which is typical of most art critics/historians, it seems to me. Here is one example:
"Stand before the Mona Lisa, and the historical discussions about how it was commissioned fade into oblivion. As Leonardo worked on it for most of the last sixteen years of his life, it became more than a portrait of an individual. It became universal, a distillation of his accumulated wisdom about the outward manifestations of our inner lives and about connections between ourselves and our world."
Really, Walter? Really? This reads more like hagiography. I've seen the Mona Lisa in the Louvre and no, I did not think it was "a distillation of his accumulated wisdom about the outward manifestations of our inner lives," but then I'm just a member of the bourgeoisie.
Leonardo was an amazing genius across perhaps more disciplines than any man in history, including a theory of the heart that was only proven 500 years later. This alone makes the book worth reading, but I find most biographies of artists like this, a little boring, a lot of hagiography, and a lot of over describing and over imagining of their works of art.
informative
medium-paced
Isaacson obviously loves Leonardo. The book is reverential and effusive. In some sense t reads like the catalogue for an exhibition of all of Leonardo's works, with detailed descriptions of each work and what to look for. Did you know, for example, that one of the Mona Lisa's pupils is slightly smaller than the other? Leonardo's amazing talents ranged from theater production and painting to scientific research and anatomy illustration (as well as dissection). It is a shame that he never published his findings as many of his discoveries weren't rediscovered for hundreds of years. He was very much ahead of his time. Much of the book is culled from Leonardo's notebooks, thousands of pages of them written in "mirror writing." It is an astonishing legacy from an amazing genius.
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Wow! A richly detailed investigation into all of Leonardo's life, not just the paintings with which we're all familiar. Striking how he abandoned a lot of work. If it wasn't for his surviving notebooks, we may never have known the width and breadth of his genius.
Absolutely wonderful. Isaacson brings Leonardo to life in a most intimate way. I thought I had a good appreciation of Leonardo's talents before, but now I have a much greater appreciation of his contributions to so many areas of science and art. The book is lavishly endowed with many illustrations from his art and anatomy illustrations to his contributions to architecture, geology and military engineering.
I’m just 100 pages in and already frustrated. Isaacson repeats himself more than my elderly uncle after his third gin and tonic. Did anyone edit this? I have no more of a feel for who Leonardo was than when I started. It seems that Isaacson just talked to a bunch of art critics who have studied Leonardo and cobbled together random quotes. I guess that’s “research” but it’s dry as dust and hasn’t injected any life into the book. I liked Isaacson’s Benjamin Franklin bio so I’m going to stick with it because many seem to love it but it might be 5 pages a day for the next century.