Everyone is quiet as they enter the narrow room. The crowd ignores the many beautiful paintings on the walls and pushes to the room’s far end. There, they gaze at a single small painting of a smiling woman. So many people have crowded in to have a look at the painting that most can only get a quick look at it. Then they are forced to move on.
This painting is the Mona Lisa created in the early 16th century by the Italian painter Leonardo da Vinci. It was kept away from the public until 1797, when it was put on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris. Art critics only first began to notice the painting in the 1850s. Then, in 1911, the painting was stolen. By the time the painting was finally recovered in 1914, it had become an international sensation. Many agreed that it was one of the greatest paintings ever made, by one of the world’s greatest painters.
Even as a young boy, da Vinci showed promise as an artist. When he was fourteen years old, he was sent to learn art in Florence, Italy. He trained for seven years, and then struck out on his own, working for wealthy men throughout Italy, and later for the king of France. Even though Leonardo began his career as a painter, he most often worked as an engineer. One reason was that he painted very slowly, and sometimes did not even finish his work. Another reason was that Italy was at war, and people needed engineers to help build city defences more than they needed artists. However, even though da Vinci worked as an engineer, he still found time to paint, creating some of his greatest artworks during this period.
After da Vinci’s death, it was discovered that he had kept many notebooks describing and illustrating his work, his inventions, and his scientific research. While his notebooks were collected and prized by the kings of Europe, none of them were published until the late 19th century. Until then, few people had had any idea what they contained.
As it turned out, his notebooks are an amazing treasure box of drawings of people, animals, plants, and fantastic inventions, such as airplanes, tanks, robots, and diving equipment. Then, there are accurate studies of the human body, showing bones and muscles with such detail that would not be seen elsewhere for four hundred years. Along with these drawings are notes describing his work. Oddly, many of these notes are written backwards: You have to hold them up to the mirror in order to read them. Many of these notes are scientific in nature, involving his research in many different fields. His notebooks show that he was not only the greatest artist of his time, but the greatest scientist as well.
This raises the question: What was more important to da Vinci, science or art? Da Vinci once said, “Practice must always be founded on sound theory ... The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies everything placed in front of it but does not know those things exist.” Here, “reason” means an understanding of what is being painted. In da Vinci’s mind, before he could paint something, he had to examine it, take it apart, and even see how it worked. Thus, his scientific research served his art.
Yet, this is too simple of a picture of the man. Da Vinci was always full of excitement to explore, to discover, and to create. He saw no division between art, invention, and science—they were all a part of his wonderful new world of discovery. Thus, some of da Vinci’s paintings were really science experiments, in that they used new chemicals and processes from his research. At the same time, his scientific drawings are considered beautiful pieces of art in their own right, and many of them were created to help him understand what he was painting. Da Vinci’s desire to create and his interest in the world around him drove both his art and his science.
So what can we learn from this? Few of us will ever be as gifted and intelligent as da Vinci. Yet, all of us can learn from his spirit. We can produce things of beauty, create new inventions, and increase our scientific knowledge. Furthermore, we can be creative in solving difficult problems. While none of us may ever be able to paint something as beautiful as the Mona Lisa, we can all do our small part to make the world a better place.