Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
The #1 New York Times bestseller A powerful story of an exhilarating mind and life.a study in creativity: how to define it, how to achieve it. --The New Yorker Vigorous, insightful. --The Washington Post A masterpiece. --San Francisco Chronicle Luminous. --The Daily Beast He was history's most creative genius. What secrets can he teach us? The author of the acclaimed bestsellers Steve Jobs, Einstein, and Benjamin Franklin brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography. Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo's astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weaves a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo's genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy. He produced the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and technology. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. His ability to stand at the crossroads of the humanities and the sciences, made iconic by his drawing of Vitruvian Man, made him history's most creative genius. His creativity, like that of other great innovators, came from having wide-ranging passions. He peeled flesh off the faces of cadavers, drew the muscles that move the lips, and then painted history's most memorable smile. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper. Isaacson also describes how Leonardo's lifelong enthusiasm for staging theatrical productions informed his paintings and inventions. Leonardo's delight at combining diverse passions remains the ultimate recipe for creativity. So, too, does his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical. His life should remind us of the importance of instilling, both in ourselves and our children, not just received knowledge but a willingness to question it--to be imaginative and, like talented misfits and rebels in any era, to think different.
Walter Isaacson is the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, an international nonprofit organization designed to promote enlightened leadership and dialogue in contemporary issues. He was the Chairman and the CEO of CNN and the Managing Editor of Time. Isaacson wrote the well-received Einstein: His Life and Universe (Simon & Schuster), for which he had access to previously unavailable papers belonging to Einstein. He has also written Benjamin Franklin: An American Life and Kissinger: A Biography, both published by Simon & Schuster, and was the consultant for the 2008 BBC/HBO drama Einstein and Eddington. His work has been published in the US, the UK, Canada, Germany, France, Japan and China. In 2007, Isaacson became a columnist for Time. He lives in Washington DC.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9787508690322 |
| ISBN 10 | 750869032X |
| Title | Leonardo Da Vinci |
| Author | Walter Isaacson |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Zhong Xin Chu Ban She/Tsai Fong Books |
| Year published | 2018-07-20 |
| Number of pages | 551 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |