Becoming Leonardo Quotes

“It seems to me we do ourselves a disservice when we over-praise a talent. It feels good to praise and idealize, but then we risk making art inaccessible to those who aspire.”
― Mike Lankford, Becoming Leonardo: An Exploded View of the Life of Leonardo da Vinci

“I think the truth is there are potential Leonardos everywhere in the world but they rarely survive or succeed in our regimented social order, and they don’t do at all well on tests. A kid growing up wild in the country today, fifteen years old and unable to properly write or even sign his name, is what social welfare workers would call “a problem.” And what’s complicated about all this is that the social worker would be right, usually. Rescuing isolated, handicapped kids is what a civilized society must do, and yet in this case what seems to have made the difference was Leonardo having to figure it out for himself. What accounts for Leonardo is an act of self-discovery, and the tenacity to make it, over and over. Imagine Leonardo as a young boy growing up in Vinci those last few months and weeks before he discovered he could draw. Little “Lionardo,” as he was before he found a way to make sense of the world. Learning to read was incredibly difficult, writing “correctly” even more so. Everything seemed wrong to him, backward somehow, and he couldn’t figure out why. He felt so stupid. And then, somehow—perhaps it was his uncle Francesco—the idea was inserted into his confused little brain, “Do it your own way, even if it is different. You are not stupid! Find how it works for you.”
― Mike Lankford, Becoming Leonardo: An Exploded View of the Life of Leonardo da Vinci

“Even though Vasari listed herbs and their properties as one of Leonardo’s areas of interest, this is one of those subjects that has been taboo around Renaissance studies. But the use of herbs for artistic and philosophical purposes was old when the ancient Greeks discovered it two thousand years before. In a rule-breaking and innovative time such as the Florentine Renaissance, inhaling a little canapa might’ve helped with the night’s entertainment, especially if you played the lira and improvised a lot. We know it was around. After all, Pope Innocent VIII had banned the practice as sacrament during mass in 1484. How bad did the practice have to get before the Pope himself had to step in? Perhaps the reason the subject remains untouched is because Leonardo Studies arose with Italian Renaissance Studies in Victorian England, where some subjects were allowed and others weren’t. Cannabis was one. Homosexuality another.”
― Mike Lankford, Becoming Leonardo: An Exploded View of the Life of Leonardo da Vinci

“He looked with his own eyes and suddenly realized he wasn’t off the coast of Japan at all, but instead that big black thing full of birds in front of him was a new continent. A new continent! This would be news in any age, but when it hit Europe in 1504, the news landed with an audible thump, followed by a long rumble. It almost seemed beyond belief. It is why America is America, named after Amerigo Vespucci and his stupendous thought. Fortunately it wasn’t called Vespucciland, which could’ve happened as well.”
― Mike Lankford, Becoming Leonardo: An Exploded View of the Life of Leonardo da Vinci

“Aside from the occasional task at court, it’s his free time that matters. In a sonnet written by Ludovico’s court poet, Guidotto Prestinari, Leonardo is accused of spending his days hunting in the woods and hills around Bergamo for “various monsters and a thousand strange worms.” He also explored caves and climbed mountains to study the fossils and geology and to glimpse the view up high, making him one of the very first European alpinists. We also know from his later inventories that around this time he began buying more books as well. And he began contemplating the creation of his own books on various subjects, beginning with painting, which he preferred to treat as a science, while at the same time analyzing and treating machine design and hydraulics more as creative arts.”
― Mike Lankford, Becoming Leonardo: An Exploded View of the Life of Leonardo da Vinci