Taking a different tack than earlier biographers, who tended to focus on the painter's works of art, Isaacson examines Leonardo's life through the notebooks. But there is no edition of the voluminous record of Leonardo's preoccupations contained in the 7,200 pages, many written in his famous mirror script, of his notebooks. Michelangelo left a trove of letters, poems, and financial records, all of which have been reproduced in modern editions and translated into English. This difference reflects the nature of the sources available for each. While Michelangelo has attracted numerous biographers-Vasari, Condivi, Symonds, Papini, Hirst, and Wallace, to name but some of the earlier and more recent chroniclers of the sculptor's life-Leonardo has not. Author of best-selling biographies of Steve Jobs and Benjamin Franklin, Isaacson offers his readers a portrait of the artist as an avatar of passionate curiosity. If Giorgio Vasari extolled Leonardo da Vinci as a celestial genius, Walter Isaacson brings this most singular artist, engineer, and scientist back to earth.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |