Leonardo's Notebooks

**An all-new, jewel-like, reader-friendly format gives new life to this relaunch of an international best-seller.** Leonardo da Vinci—artist, inventor, and prototypical Renaissance man—is a perennial source of fascination because of his astonishing intellect and boundless curiosity about the natural and man-made world. During his life he created numerous works of art and kept voluminous notebooks that detailed his artistic and intellectual pursuits. The collection of writings and art in this magnificent book are drawn from his notebooks. The book organizes his wide range of interests into subjects such as human figures, light and shade, perspective and visual perception, anatomy, botany and landscape, geography, the physical sciences and astronomy, architecture, sculpture, and inventions. Nearly every piece of writing throughout the book is keyed to the piece of artwork it describes. The writing and art is selected by art historian H. Anna Suh, who provides fascinating commentary and insight into the material, making __Leonardo's Notebooks__ an exquisite single-volume compendium celebrating his enduring genius. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) possessed arguably the greatest mind the world has ever known. Artist, draftsman, inventor, and philosopher, his contributions to modern society are profound and wide-reaching. Throughout his life, Leonardo kept dozens of notebooks, elegant studies on topics ranging from architecture to botany to philosophy--indeed nearly anything of which the human imagination could conceive. This book collects a variety of the most fascinating of these studies and compiles them into one volume that demystifies his insights and clearly illustrates his ideas, experiments, and observations with hundreds of his original sketches, line drawings, and paintings. Topics include Anatomy and the Movement of the Human Figure; Botany and Landscape; Engineering and Military Engineering; Physical Sciences; Aerodynamics and Flight; Geography--and more.--From publisher description TITLE......Page 4 COPYRIGHT......Page 5 CONTENTS......Page 6 INTRODUCTION......Page 8 EDITOR’S NOTE......Page 10 Part I Beauty, Reason, and Art......Page 12 I. On Painting......Page 14 II. Human Figures......Page 52 III. Light andShade......Page 98 IV. Perspective and Visual Perception......Page 120 V. Studies and Sketches......Page 140 Part II Observations and Order......Page 176 VI. Anatomy......Page 178 VII. Botany and Landscape......Page 202 VIII. Geography......Page 226 IX. Physical Sciences and Astronomy......Page 252 Part III Practical Matters......Page 262 X. Architecture and Planning......Page 264 XI. Sculpture and Metalwork......Page 314 XII. Inventions and Experiments......Page 332 XIII. Practical Advice......Page 376 XIV. Philosophy, Aphorisms, and Miscellaneous Writing......Page 392 Bibliography......Page 412 Index......Page 441