Learning from Leonardo

Each fall when I teach Introduction to the Arts, my interest in the arts is renewed. I once heard a good piece of advice from a fellow teacher: every time he teaches a course he tries to read a new book related to the subject. I haven’t always followed that advice, but this semester I am having more fun than ever revising a couple of my courses and digging into related topics. I picked up a short biography of Leonardo da Vinci a few days ago and am enjoying learning some new information about his life and art.

One of the most intriguing aspects of da Vinci’s life is his incredibly wide range of interests. Although we think of him mostly as a painter and designer, he was also fascinated with biology, optometrics, mathematics, architecture, sculpture, medicine, flight, music, warfare, city planning, and a host of other fields. He was the original “Renaissance Man,” making contributions in a wide variety of fields. For instance, he dissected cadavers to learn more about the human body so he could portray is more accurately in his artwork.

This seems to be the opposite approach we encourage today. In order to be successful, common wisdom says, we have to specialize in one area and rise to the top of our field. There is surely something to be said for choosing area where we’re gifted and sticking with our strengths. However, I think it’s also wise to read widely and learn about a variety of things. This is called “cross-fertilization,” and I believe it’s one of the keys to Leonardo’s originality and genius. He gained fresh insights and creative ideas from exposing himself to a variety of seemingly unrelated fields of study. Then within those fields he found information and ideas he could apply to other areas. His main areas were painting, geometry, architecture and the like, but he was not afraid to be curious and learn from any source possible.

Have we lost our curiosity and drive to expose ourselves to new ways of thinking? Have we learned all there is to know? We literally have the information of the world at our fingertips, but we have only scratched the surface of what is possible. What is something new you will learn this week?