Chekhov's Mistress
Who was Leonardo?
Last night I read a piece by Adam Gopnik (who, in my opinion, is excellent with words) on two new books about Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo is, for me, one of those historical figures who always feels familiar—like I know everything I need to know about him. However, as in last night, when I have the opportunity to find out about him, I generally discover how much of a misperception that is.
Gopnik relates some interesting facts. First, of course, there’s the simply amazing things: Leonardo scribbling in margins a parachute design that, tested 500 years later, worked; or Leonardo searching for something akin to a law of gravitation 200 years before Newton. Then there’s the surprising: Leonardo was substantial enough to merit two biographies written during or around his lifetime. Then there’s the earthbound: Leonardo angrily chronicling the thefts of his apprentice, or joking with his patrons about a forthcoming work, or disliking the thought of being hired help, or insecurely dissing his contemporaries.
Eventually, Gopnik gets on to Da Vinci Code, which he thrashes in one efficient paragraph. But there’s a larger point—Gopnik brings up Dan Brown’s book in order to delve into popular conceptions of Leonardo as occult figure or as a harbinger of scientific revolution. He even goes so far as to pose the question of whether we would "recognize the loss from the world" if Leonardo’s work had never been discovered (a question which he answers in the affirmative).
In reading the piece, I realized that Leonardo seemed so familiar because I had wholly absorbed the popular conceptions of him that Gopnik relates. These popular ideas, which are themselves dull and common, had made the man himself seem dull and common to me. The whole episode was a worthwhile lesson in the kind of pop culture of historical figures that gets passed on to us. It does often fill us with the misconception that these people, who did substantial enough things to be remembered for centuries or millennia, are generally run-of-the-mill and easily shelved.
Thinking of all this, Gopnik’s piece gave me pause, and made me want to read a few biographies of famous historical figures whom I only know through word-of-mouth.
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About this Post
- Posted by: Bud Parr
- Date: January 27, 2005
- Filed Under:
Wise Men Fish Here: Literature
- Comments:0
- Links to this Post: Technorati
