{"id":46151,"date":"2018-05-10T09:58:07","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T15:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=46151"},"modified":"2018-05-09T15:20:58","modified_gmt":"2018-05-09T21:20:58","slug":"walter-isaacson-with-leonardo-da-vinci-friday-may-11-2018-5-pm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/walter-isaacson-with-leonardo-da-vinci-friday-may-11-2018-5-pm\/","title":{"rendered":"Walter Isaacson with Leonardo da Vinci – Friday, May 11, 2018 – 5 pm"},"content":{"rendered":"

The author of the acclaimed bestsellers Steve Jobs<\/em><\/strong>, Einstein<\/strong><\/em>, and Benjamin Franklin<\/strong><\/em> brings Leonardo da Vinci<\/strong> to life in this exciting new biography. Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo\u2019s astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson<\/strong> weaves a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo\u2019s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy.<\/span><\/p>\n

He produced the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper<\/em><\/strong> and the Mona Lisa<\/em><\/strong>. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and technology. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. His ability to stand at the crossroads of the humanities and the sciences, made iconic by his drawing of Vitruvian Man<\/em><\/strong>, made him history\u2019s most creative genius.<\/span><\/p>\n

His creativity, like that of other great innovators, came from having wide-ranging passions. He peeled flesh off the faces of cadavers, drew the muscles that move the lips, and then painted history\u2019s most memorable smile. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper<\/strong><\/em>. Isaacson also describes how Leonardo\u2019s lifelong enthusiasm for staging theatrical productions informed his paintings and inventions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leonardo\u2019s delight at combining diverse passions remains the ultimate recipe for creativity. So, too, does his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical. His life should remind us of the importance of instilling, both in ourselves and our children, not just received knowledge but a willingness to question it\u2014to be imaginative and, like talented misfits and rebels in any era, to think differently.<\/span><\/p>\n

Walter Isaacson, university professor of history at Tulane<\/strong>, has been CEO of the Aspen Institute, chairman of CNN, and editor of Time<\/em> magazine. He is the author of Leonardo da Vinci<\/em>; The\u00a0<\/em><\/span>Innovators<\/em>; Steve Jobs<\/em>; Einstein: His Life and Universe<\/em>; Benjamin Franklin: An American Life<\/em>; and Kissinger: A Biography<\/em>, and the coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They\u00a0<\/em>Made<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The author of the acclaimed bestsellers Steve Jobs, Einstein, and Benjamin Franklin brings Leonardo da Vinci to life<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":46382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2239,1],"tags":[12366,12365,12367,12370,12364,12369,894,12371,12368],"class_list":["post-46151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-literary-events","category-uncategorized","tag-benjamin-franklin","tag-einstein","tag-leonardo-da-vinci","tag-mona-lisa","tag-steve-jobs","tag-the-last-supper","tag-tulane","tag-vitruvian-man","tag-walter-isaacson"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Isaacson.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}