Most of what we know about Leonardo da Vinci, we know because of his notebooks. Some 6,000 sheets of notes and drawings survive, perhaps one-fifth of what he actually produced. With an artist’s eye and a scientist’s curiosity, he recorded in these pages his observations on the movement of water and the formation of rocks, the nature of flight and optics, anatomy, architecture, sculpture, and painting. He jotted down fables, epigrams, and letters and developed his belief in the sublime unity of nature and man. Through his notebooks we can get an insight into Leonardo’s thoughts, and his approach to work and life. This selection, organized in seven themed sections, offers a fascinating and informative sample of his writings. Fully updated, this new edition includes some 70 line drawings and a Preface by Martin Kemp, one of the world’s leading authorities on Leonardo, who explores the artist’s genius and the contents and legacy of his manuscripts. The book also features new notes and a chronology of Leonardo’s life.
I need to admit that this book have taken me a very long time to finish reading. But also this book had been laying on my shelf waiting to be read even longer than it took me to finish this book. But without making this into longer than it already is lets jump into the review of this book.
First of all I gotta admit that the topics which this books talks about comes straight from Leonardo Da Vinci’s notebooks which he himself have written a very long time ago. I was very surprised to read about the topics which Leonardo Da Vinci has written about back in the Renaissance era.
This book have taken me a very long time to read as I’ve said above, because this book talks about a lot of advanced topics which I needed a lot of time to process and understand because I’m not that smart as Leonardo Da Vinci clearly was.
But I need to admit here that a lot of parts of this book doesn’t seem to have been meant to be read by other people than by Leonardo Da Vinci himself. They seemed like a lot of parts of this book where meant for Leonardo Da Vinci himself as notes to himself if he wanted to look back at some of his notes. Which is the main issue that I had about this book. Because there are a lot of moments of this book where I would get bored because a lot of parts of this book seemed like I was reading school textbook.
This book involves a lot of drawings that Leonardo Da Vinci himself have made during his time, which made me give this book some extra points for doing. Because the drawings really helped me to understand what Leonardo Da Vinci was talking about in the notes which this book has.
The writing style of this book is very flat and almost school textbook like. But once again this book wasn’t exactly meant for readers as it was meant more like Leonardo Da Vinci making notes for himself for later use if needed.
I Give This Book 3 / 5
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