ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE NOTEBOOKS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI

The notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci reveal a full range of Leonardo's versatile genius: his writings on painting, sculpture, architecture, anatomy, mining, inventions, music. If you have ever wondered what Leonardo thought, then these are the books to acquire. Leonardo's philosophical ideas, lives of where he lived and his surroundings, his theories on color, perspective, proportion, architecture, foliage, physiology and so many other things that the Da Vinci was curious about are found within these precious writings of the High Renaissance master .

Throughout the book and amidst the text are Leonardo's sketches, thumbnail sketches, workings of famous pieces such as the Last Supper, some anatomical drawings - and in those pages you can see Leonardo's handwriting which he tended to write backwards. The value and reference is endless, especially for the artist.His anatomical studies were a watershed moment, because they introduced anatomical skeletal and muscular diagrams as the standard for communicating knowledge of the body and self. In a time when this kind of anatomical examination was considered profane,taboo, illegal and against the teachings of the Catholic Church, Da Vinci was convinced that the true knowledge of the shape of any body could only be arrived at by seeing it from different aspects.

By knowing what was going on under the skin of the human anatomy, he could correctly project the exterior in his art. This process held great value for Da Vinci. Surgery of dead bodies would however lead Leonardo in breaking many religious laws of the time and put his life in risk of being put death . The human body was of so much interest to Leonardo that he believed that there was a deeper connection between the workings of the Universe and the human being.

As a professional fine artist, and human anatomist I have taken part in several gross anatomy clinics and conducted my own dissections and hundreds of different studies of the human body and found that my personal understanding of the human body and my artistic skill has grown from this and through examination of Da Vinci's examinations of the subject. The truth of the body, the truth of the human being can only be discovered by looking at the body from multiple aspects, like; level, motion, perspective, transformation and growth. He opened up the body, it had always been closed, now its open. Now exam the body and focus your mind and within you will find that the body itself provides us the very essence of what it means to be human.

Professor, Anatomist, and Professional Fine Artist,

James Xavier Barbour

I have provided all of you with the means to get you started on your personal journey



http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=5000

or
http://interconnected.org/home/more/davinci/1.html