Curiosity is Genius

Renaissance was a time of rebirth of knowledge. Cultures, art and architecture from past eras were revisited and incorporated into the Renaissance. The Renaissance evolved from a time of strict belief based on the Church, to a time of curiosity and opening up to other ideas that were not just based on the Catholic Church.

Geniuses such as Leonardo Da Vinci can be recognized as a true Renaissance man because of his inquiry. Being a curious person, he explored and experimented with a lot of concepts, such as flying. He also reflects the ‘rebirth of knowledge’ by incorporating some of the Ancient Roman ideas. The basic concept of a dome derived from Ancient Roman architecture which was explored by other architects. Da Vinci took this knowledge and included it into his own designs. Leonardo Da Vinci is very well known as the painter of the all around famous, ‘Mona Lisa.’ But he was not just a painter. He was a scientist as well. An inventor.

While trying to find the formula of having the same area of a square and a given circle, Leonardo Da Vinci was able to use this knowledge to draw his people to scale. Although his calculations failed, it helped him with his paintings. In the painting, ‘Baptism of Christ,’ by Andrea del Verrocchio who was Da Vinci’s master, Andrea del Verrochio let Leonardo paint one of the angels, as it was common for the master to allow their apprentices to paint sections of a master’s painting. The angel Leonardo drew stands out from the rest of the painting, with its intricate detail. In Leonardo’s own painting, the ‘Virgin of the Rocks,’ the Virgin and babies are all to scale with details such as the shape of their muscles clearly shown.

He was able to paint with such accuracy because he was also a scientist. He liked to open up corpses and study their anatomy. Da Vinci has numerous sketches of bodies and their insides. They clearly show muscles and tendons, and how they look like in different positions. Apart from dissecting corpses, Leonardo also spent time outside carefully studying people’s body movements such as hands. He sketched them in their different positions and drew with a lot of detail. Therefore, this helped him with his paintings such as the very famous ‘Mona Lisa.’ If the painting is studied carefully, her hands are in a carefully placed and elegant position with the bottom hand supporting the top hand.

Leonardo Da Vinci also asked a lot of questions about other concepts, such as flying. He spent a lot of time observing birds and their flight as well. After studying them, he invented devices that would help man fly. Based on theory, knowledge and observation he constructed the actual devices and while some of them failed, some of them worked as well. In fact, he invented a parachute, something that we now have today. Leonardo Da Vinci was indeed a very curious person. And his curiosity led him to becoming a genius. A true Renaissance man.