Leonardo da Vinci — Walter Isaacson

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Walter Isaacson’s Leonardo da Vinci was a fascinating read, and I walked away surprised by how much I didn’t know. We often think of Leonardo primarily as a painter, but the book makes it clear that he was a true polymath — someone with extraordinary abilities across multiple disciplines. Painting, in many ways, seemed to be a natural talent for him, but not necessarily his central passion.

What made Leonardo such a remarkable artist was his relentless curiosity and his deep understanding of the physical and natural world. He studied everything in extraordinary detail — from the movement of water and air to the full anatomy of the human body.

Leonardo performed numerous dissections, examining not only bones but also muscles, tendons, and nerves. His anatomical studies allowed him to capture subtle, lifelike movement in his paintings. Isaacson highlights how Leonardo constantly refined his understanding, and how this pursuit of knowledge shaped his artistic mastery.

He filled thousands of pages with observations on anatomy, animals, mechanics, geology, hydraulics, and more. Many of his insights were so precise that modern science has confirmed their accuracy centuries later. The irony, as Isaacson points out, is that Leonardo never published his notebooks. Had he done so, he would have received credit for discoveries that others made long after him.

Leonardo cared far more about the pursuit of knowledge and the quest for perfection than about completing or publishing his work. He abandoned several paintings because he felt he couldn’t achieve the vision he had in mind. Others took years to finish — most famously the Mona Lisa, which he revised repeatedly over more than a decade.

He was also notorious for procrastination. Leonardo often delayed starting commissions, missed deadlines, or failed to complete projects altogether. Patrons frequently had to pressure him to finish or return payments.

My only critique of the book is that Isaacson occasionally dives very deeply into artistic techniques and subtle visual details. At times, it felt like being in an advanced art class, and I couldn’t always see the nuances he described. But that’s a minor issue in an otherwise exceptional biography.

Overall, Leonardo da Vinci is a brilliant exploration of one of history’s greatest minds — a man driven not by fame or productivity, but by an insatiable curiosity about how everything works.