The Da Vinci Effect
Jack of all trades, and master of all of them
Hey friend,
I hope you've been well!
Recently I was nominated for Electronic Artist of the Year at the Fraser Valley Music Awards for the second time and this time I won!
This honestly took me by surprise, but I am very grateful that they liked the music I put out this year, and thankful to the people who voted for me! It’s an honour to be recognized as the Electronic Artist of the Year in my hometown!
Da Vinci
Lately I have been reading the Leonardo Da Vinci biography by Walter Isaacson, and it is a pretty interesting read! I have always been fascinated by creativity and how different artists expressed themselves throughout history, and none are more impressive than Leonardo. His ability to paint at the highest level was only one of his many incredible talents. In his letter to the Duke of Milan when he was 30, he listed several paragraphs of things that he could do, including build bridges, redirect water, make weapons, dig tunnels, build wagons with artillery attached, and at the very bottom he mentions that he can also paint.
It is fascinating that a man who is quite possibly the most famous painter in history, would wait until the very end of his cover letter, which he pretty much invented with this letter by the way, to mention that he can also paint.
The Da Vinci Effect
There is a term I have heard used in multiple places called the Da Vinci Effect, and it is when you specialize in many different fields and the experience gained from the depth of these different interests fuse together in a unique new way of doing things.
Leonardo was a master painter, but he was also well studied in anatomy, mathematics, politics, geology, botany, zoology, optics, aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, and engineering.
This is an absurd amount of specialization for one person, and today we rarely see someone like this anymore, but there is something to learn from Leonardo’s insatiable thirst for knowledge and understanding. When you have a deep knowledge of different fields, you may end up bringing in some things from one field that help elevate another field. Leonardo often used his knowledge of anatomy, botany, and geology to make more realistic paintings than anyone had ever seen. His study of the human eye gave his paintings a haunting feel, like the painting was looking right at you.
He had a strange ability to captivate people when they looked at his art, and to this day he is still the most respected artist in history. His most recently discovered painting was the Salvator Mundi, which sold for $450 million dollars in 2017, after it was lost to time for centuries. It was passed around between royalty for hundreds of years and eventually was purchased in 2005 at an auction for $1175, not knowing that it was a lost Leonardo.
What is There to Learn from Leonardo?
It is pretty clear what made Leonardo great, many many years of practice, as well as always looking with interest at the world around him. Nobody had as curious of a mind as Leonardo. In his notebooks he had engineering drawings on one page, philosophical quotes on another, and on another, notes to himself such as “describe the tongue of a woodpecker” and “describe the jaw of a crocodile”. He questioned things that most people never even think about.
There was also another side of Leonardo that we can learn from. Leonardo was often late to finish his commissions, and many times he didn’t finish them at all, even though he was paid. He was too cool to paint portraits for royalty and would drag them along while taking payments from them, leading to threatening letters if he didn’t finish the work on time, which he despitefully wouldn’t. Leonardo was a dreamer and did not like having to work on a tight deadline. He was a free thinker who might have suffered in today’s corporate world. His mind was too all over the place to work in the hyper specialized world we live in today, but we can take his curiosity as an inspiration and try to imbue a bit of that into our own lives.
People often tell you that you should only focus on one thing, and that you will only be successful if you have a laser sharp focus. The thing is, you don’t know where your greatest ideas will come from, and sometimes they come from learning and trying new things. I think Leonardo is a good reminder that if you trust your instincts and your curiosity, your different interests will influence each other in unique ways.
If you would like to check out this book you can find a link below! It’s definitely an interesting read, and the pictures are pretty cool!
