Leonardo's Legacy

May 3, 2010
Every year more than 5 million people line up to see Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa-but why? In his latest, German science writer Klein (The Secret Pulse of Time) seeks to understand why "this portrait of a Florentine housewife of no more than average beauty" is so "deeply penetrating." Klein makes a compelling case that DaVinci's ability to trigger an empathetic physical response in the viewer lay in his scientific acumen: the asymmetry of the Mona Lisa's smile, for instance, deliberately reflects the asymmetry of the human brain. While Leonardo is remembered primarily as an artist, his accomplishments as a scientist were at least as important; among other work, he studied the motion of water, worked out the trajectory of missiles, and designed impregnable fortifications, all with just a bare-bones knowledge of arithmetic. Klein insists that "the Mona Lisa so riveting because it incorporated many of the optical rules that Leonardo discovered," such as the way proportions change in relation to distance and colors transform as light passes through the atmosphere. Including a detailed chronology of the artist's life, this makes an illuminating new look at Leonardo's unique genius. 70 B&W photos.

April 15, 2010
Artists' work is their legacy to societyseldom do they provide us notes on their life and thoughts as they are in the process of living and creating. Luckily, Leonardo jotted down thousands of pages of ideas, sketches, thoughts, and more. Roughly half of this prodigious output exists today, though fragmented, in museums and private collections, and occasionally new pages surface. In this book, originally published in Germany in 2008, Klein ("The Science of Happiness") masterfully connects Leonardo's tangible work (for example, paintings) to his ideas in his notebooks within the political and economic world where he functioned. What is most amazing is Klein's ability to show readers how Leonardo's powers of observation could make up for his lack of mathematical knowledge or engineering training. Equally incredible are Leonardo's drawings of the human bodyso insightful that they still provide us with information today. VERDICT In short, Klein successfully enters Leonardo's mind through his notebooks and includes readers along the way. Highly recommended and required reading for history of science scholars and enthusiasts.Michael D. Cramer, Schwarz BioSciences, RTP, NC

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2010
A lucid examination of Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), emphasizing his immense secret journal.

In an excellent translation by Frisch, German science writer Klein (The Secret Pulse of Time: Making Sense of Life's Scarcest Commodity, 2008, etc.) states that early da Vinci scholars were mostly art historians. However, as they assembled thousands of pages, notebooks and fragments scattered across the world after his death, scientists and engineers joined in extolling his insights. The author traveled across Europe and America, considering along the way da Vinci paintings, manuscripts and a few remaining engineering works that reveal the scope of his genius. Besides describing da Vinci's research in anatomy, physics, hydraulics, military weapons and flight, Klein also highlights enthusiasts devoted to building the inventions whose beautiful diagrams have long graced coffee-table histories. The long chapter on the Mona Lisa shows da Vinci's exhaustive curiosity—he worked on it for 15 years. Dozens of journal pages illustrate his study of light, color and human anatomy, all of which contribute to the painting's brilliance. Flying also fascinated da Vinci, and many of his extraordinarily precise analyses of bird flight were only confirmed by 20th-century stop-motion photography. Klein describes da Vinci as the first modern scientist, obsessed with understanding the world as it actually worked, which turned out to be different from the explanations by traditional authorities.

This richly illustrated, engrossing account makes a good case that da Vinci was not only ahead of his time but ahead of our own.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 1, 2010
German science writer Klein enlightens readers about modern perspectives on Leonardo da Vincis oeuvre, which is generously represented here. He opens with the most widely known fact about Leonardo: he painted the Mona Lisa. Kleins visit to the famed dame sets his pattern of trying to understand Leonardos thought by directly looking at his actual paintings and drawings and walking about places where the Renaissance genius conducted investigations or construction projects. A close description of the image in question, be it a portrait or drafts of flowing water, anatomy, or the technology of weaponry, flying machines, and mechanical devices, matches the acuity of Leonardos observations, which Klein elaborates. The views of contemporary scholars and accounts of projects by Leonardo enthusiasts to build some of his contraptions further reinforce Kleins presentation of Leonardo as a modern scientist and engineer. Even where nature stymied Leonardos perspicacitymotion completely bamboozled himKlein extols his imaginative inquiring. Using biography, travelogue, and history, Klein turns in a companionable introduction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)