Leonardo Da Vinci is best known for his art and secondarily for his sketches of inventions which were far ahead of their time - inventions like parachutes, flying machines, and so forth. Less well known is the degree to which Leonardo was an advocate for careful empirical observation and an early version of the scientific method, making him important to the development of both science and skepticism.
It was still popular for scholars to believe they could obtain certain knowledge of the world through pure thinking and divine revelation. Leonardo rejected this in favor of empirical observation and experience. Scattered through his notebooks are notations on scientific methodology and empirical inquiry as means for obtaining reliable knowledge about how the world really works. Although he called himself an "unlettered man," he insisted that "Wisdom is the daughter of experience."
Leonardo's emphasis on observation and empirical science was not separate from his art. He believed a good artist should also be a good scientist because an artist cannot reproduce color, texture, depth, and proportion accurately unless they are a careful and practiced observer of reality around them.
The important of proportion may have been one of Leonardo's most abiding passions: proportion in numbers, sounds, time, weight, space, etc. One of Leonardo's most famous drawings is Vitruvius, or the Vitruvian Man, designed to demonstrate the proportions of the human body.
This drawing has been used by a variety of humanist movements and organizations because of its association with Leonardo's stress on the importance of scientific observation, his role in Renaissance Humanism, and also of course his role in the history of art -- humanism is not just a philosophy of logic and science, but also of life and aesthetics.
The text above and below the drawing is in mirror writing - Leonardo was a secretive man who often wrote his journals in code. This may be connected to a personal life which involved behavior frowned upon by the authorities. As early as 1476, while still an apprentice, he was accused of sodomy with a male model. Leonardo's extensive use of code seems to be responsible for the widespread belief in his involvement in secret organizations, allowing fiction writers like Dan Brown to misappropriate his life and work for their own conspiratorial theories.
It was still popular for scholars to believe they could obtain certain knowledge of the world through pure thinking and divine revelation. Leonardo rejected this in favor of empirical observation and experience. Scattered through his notebooks are notations on scientific methodology and empirical inquiry as means for obtaining reliable knowledge about how the world really works. Although he called himself an "unlettered man," he insisted that "Wisdom is the daughter of experience."
Leonardo's emphasis on observation and empirical science was not separate from his art. He believed a good artist should also be a good scientist because an artist cannot reproduce color, texture, depth, and proportion accurately unless they are a careful and practiced observer of reality around them.
The important of proportion may have been one of Leonardo's most abiding passions: proportion in numbers, sounds, time, weight, space, etc. One of Leonardo's most famous drawings is Vitruvius, or the Vitruvian Man, designed to demonstrate the proportions of the human body.
This drawing has been used by a variety of humanist movements and organizations because of its association with Leonardo's stress on the importance of scientific observation, his role in Renaissance Humanism, and also of course his role in the history of art -- humanism is not just a philosophy of logic and science, but also of life and aesthetics.
The text above and below the drawing is in mirror writing - Leonardo was a secretive man who often wrote his journals in code. This may be connected to a personal life which involved behavior frowned upon by the authorities. As early as 1476, while still an apprentice, he was accused of sodomy with a male model. Leonardo's extensive use of code seems to be responsible for the widespread belief in his involvement in secret organizations, allowing fiction writers like Dan Brown to misappropriate his life and work for their own conspiratorial theories.
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