By Vijay Jampana
Leonardo Da Vinci is a well known Renaissance man and has been inspirational to many Inventors and Artists from the past 500 years. An Engineer, Scientist, Mathematician, Cartographer, Musician, Stage planner, Anatomist, Philosopher and don't forget that he was a painter too. He himself put his painting skill as a last qualification while applying for a job at Sforza's court. But did he achieve greatness in any or all of these fields?
Is he comparable with Galileo as a Scientist?, he didn't propose any ground breaking theories or invented anything concrete(that is known) except concepts in his notebooks. Is he comparable with Michelangelo in artistic /engineering achievement? he hardly finished any of his paintings or projects. But why was he considered as one of the greatest Polymaths?. Do Polymaths need to be successful in all of the fields they put their hands into?. Was he just a man with immense curiosity and with Attention deficit disorder?
He was a man from a small village born out of wedlock in the mid 15th century Italy, so he couldn't inherit his father's profession of Legal Notary in Florence. This was a blessing so that he could pursue his passion of art. He could have been very poor at a monotonous office job that doesn't involve creativity. Even in his preferred field, he was not very successful or well known till his late 30s as he couldn't finish his commissions on time. But the quality of the few works he completed is so great that he became a legend by the end of his life. Through out his life, he was mostly known as an Artist, but his heart was at Defense engineering (his notebooks were full of various war machine concepts) and his other interest was to understand the perfection of Human anatomy (Greeks and Romans explored it but that knowledge was lost till early Renaissance).
What do I think of him?
Do I think he is overrated and deserve the praise he received? .
Yes, I do think he is overrated, because it is impossible to rate someone exactly what they deserve at any certain point in time. But he deserves all the praise he received and I want Da Vinci to be overrated rather than underrated. If we see the perception of the larger portion of people, most hardly know about him, Many know him, only because his Mona Lisa painting was popular and he was the painter of it. I think only inventors, artists or people with scientific/historical awareness truly appreciated his other aspects and rated him highly as he deserved.
Our current society puts too much emphasis on qualifications, is someone who got multiple degrees in various fields a better polymath than someone who independently learned about various things but without official degrees or Ph.Ds?, although both are not mutually exclusive. But, I see many people who get these degrees only do that to get some job and earn money, but not because they are curious about those topics. Da Vinci pursued various topics whichever piqued his curiosity and studied in the areas could aid in his current pursuit. There is a holistic relation in everything he learned (Study of anatomy helped learning Bio mechanics, which in turn helped his Engineering pursuits, Study of mathematics helped his understanding of ideal proportion of the human body and it's relation to the nature, and his scientific/mathematical knowledge helped his art, for him everything is connected). We learned all the unnecessary stuff during our typical school education process which was inspired by archaic Prussian school system. This system is not without its merits, it teaches discipline to many and provide guidance to those who need to be told what they want to become. However, it is painful to those with an independent spirit. How many such Davincis we lost and losing in this process of cutting down a tall poppy?
If Da Vinci lived in the modern world, I think he could not have been anything notable, because modern democratic world values reliable mediocrity, this is especially becoming a dangerous trend due to advent of information technology as masses got the power back from nobility. This is not wrong in itself, but it is impacting human progression adversely due to resurgence of tribal conflicts( Religious, Political, Ideological, regional) in the Internet.
Da Vinci was a man who valued Knowledge as the supreme pursuit, because he wanted to know as much as possible, not because someone told him to know about it or not because of some mass ideology or religion. He was not morally corrupt, even though he loved designing war machines, he left his patron Cesare Borgia once he knew the cruelty of Borgia and saw the brutality of war first hand. He probably gave up on his passion of war machines because of this reason. He wanted to contribute to the progression of mankind and revive the golden age of knowledge which was lost after the fall of Roman empire.
Even though most of his inventions were stalled at conceptual stage, his notes and life helped brilliant inventors and artists of succeeding generations to get inspired. For example, Igor Sikorsky, inventor of Helicopter was greatly inspired by Da Vinci which led to his invention.
In the current era, where Actors, Sportsmen and Pop singers are revered/idolized as Gods, we need to overate people like Da Vinci who contributed to the progression of humanity by inspiring others if not directly. I am not against popular entertainers, but they are not the idols that humanity should look up to, but should be someone like Da Vinci.
He was a man, not perfect, he had his own flaws and struggles, which makes him more inspirational. He was among the many visionary heroes that showed light in the darkness to lead the humanity forward. After many centuries, we still remember him, take inspiration from him and I think we should going forward too and encourage our posterity to do so. We need more like him that hold light in the upcoming darkness.