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A review by tatidengo
Leonardo's Legacy: How da Vinci Reimagined the World by Stefan Klein, Shelley Frisch
4.0
While people LOVE to mention Leonardo, that's all they do: mention him, followed by a laundry list of achievements observed at face value, devoid of depth. This was even the case for me, despite having graduated from an art college where we took many, many art history classes.
This book investigates all of Leonardo's artistic and scientific interests, intermingled with bits of his biography. The writing maintains a pleasant balance between the narration of his life, the facts, and the author's points of view. I only wish it would have included more pictures, since the author spends a lot of time describing images that I always wanted to see.
I learned a lot that I never knew about Leonardo, but especially loved the conclusion, where the author poses the following: Why hasn't there been any other human being to match Leonardo, in his grand ingenuity? This raises some questions about the modern educational system and as an art teacher, these are issues about which I ask myself almost daily, and am glad that he acknowledged that even though people love to say Leonardo was "centuries ahead of his time", Leonardo was actually very much a product of his time, and maybe (definitely) would not have flourished in modern times, as he was able to in his time.
This book investigates all of Leonardo's artistic and scientific interests, intermingled with bits of his biography. The writing maintains a pleasant balance between the narration of his life, the facts, and the author's points of view. I only wish it would have included more pictures, since the author spends a lot of time describing images that I always wanted to see.
I learned a lot that I never knew about Leonardo, but especially loved the conclusion, where the author poses the following: Why hasn't there been any other human being to match Leonardo, in his grand ingenuity? This raises some questions about the modern educational system and as an art teacher, these are issues about which I ask myself almost daily, and am glad that he acknowledged that even though people love to say Leonardo was "centuries ahead of his time", Leonardo was actually very much a product of his time, and maybe (definitely) would not have flourished in modern times, as he was able to in his time.