Introduction

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) is usually presented as the paradigm of the “universal genius”. It is advisable to examine precisely what can be asserted about his case: to what extent his knowledge of diverse disciplines transformed his painting, and to what extent it is a later idealization.

1. The painter who declares himself a scientist

Leonardo stated in writing that painting is a science. In the Paragone (“Comparison”, the work in which he weighs the arts against each other) and in the Treatise on Painting — compiled posthumously by F. Melzi — he holds that the painter must master optics, perspective, proportion and anatomy, and goes so far as to enumerate the “ten optical functions of the eye” as components of painting. This is not an unprecedented thesis of his: Alberti (De pictura —“On Painting”—, 1435) and Piero della Francesca had already established the mathematical foundation of painting, and Leonardo assumes and expands that program.

His notebooks — the Atlantic, Arundel, Leicester and Madrid Codices, and the Windsor anatomical drawings — document a real integration: mathematical, optical, geological and botanical studies are interleaved with notes on painting. For Leonardo the scientific drawing was an instrument of knowledge: drawing was his way of observing and understanding.

2. The science that informs the painting

The thesis that his scientific knowledge informed his painting is documented with concrete examples. In anatomy — the dissection of more than thirty corpses, the study of the facial muscles, the “movements of the soul” — it translates into the gesturality of The Last Supper and into the smile of the Mona Lisa. In optics — light, atmosphere, sharpness — it produces the sfumato (“smoky”: blurred transitions between tones without marked contours) and aerial perspective. In geology — strata, fossils, erosion — the rocky backgrounds of The Virgin of the Rocks appear. In botany — the drawing of plants — the species of his compositions can be seen. And in proportion — the Vitruvian canon — it is manifested in the Vitruvian Man and in the structure of The Last Supper.

These examples are verifiable: science informed and specified his painting in concrete ways. It is quite another thing to assert that science causally “transformed” his painting in an isolable way, for there also intervene his workshop training (Verrocchio), his talent and the preexisting tradition. The strong form of the thesis is interpretive; the weak form is documented.

3. The limits of the case

Four limits should be noted, so as not to idealize the figure. His science was partly erroneous: the theory of vision turned out confused, the anatomy followed Galen with errors, and the obsession with squaring the circle was a dead end. He published almost nothing: his polymathy was private and of late historical impact, and it did not directly influence the scientific revolution of the 17th century. He left unfinished works — the Adoration of the Magi, Saint Jerome, the Sforza horse —, something Vasari already noted when commenting on his difficulty in concluding. And he was not exceptional of his kind, for the “artist-engineer” was a Renaissance type (Alberti, Brunelleschi, Francesco di Giorgio), of whom Leonardo is the most famous but not the only one.

Moreover, Leonardo called himself “omo sanza lettere” — “a man without letters” —: he lacked Latin and university training, and his science was observational, not scholastic. It is a historical peculiarity, not the mark of a timeless genius.

4. What the case teaches about polymathy

The case of Leonardo illustrates a general thesis without proving it entirely: the integration of domains can produce understandings that an isolated discipline would not produce — the sfumato and aerial perspective would have arisen neither from a painter trained only in the workshop nor from an isolated optician —. But the case also shows its costs: dispersion and lack of transmission. And it likewise shows its historical character: the integration was possible because art and science had not yet separated into disciplines; Leonardo did not “break” boundaries, but lived before they were consolidated.

Conclusion

It can be safely asserted that Leonardo held that painting is a science, that his knowledge of anatomy, optics and other disciplines informed his painting in verifiable ways, and that his case has precise historical limits. It should not be asserted that science causally “transformed” his painting in an isolable way, nor that he was a genius without context. On why knowledge is divided into the disciplines that Leonardo integrated, see Reality, disciplines, and the unity of knowledge; on the idea of integration as an ideal — and not as a state —, The total work of art.

References

Primary sources

  • Leonardo da Vinci, Treatise on Painting (compilation by F. Melzi); the Atlantic, Arundel, Leicester and Madrid Codices; the Windsor anatomical drawings.

Secondary sources

  • Kemp, M., Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man (1981).
  • Clark, K., Leonardo da Vinci (1939).