- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Oxford University Press; First Edition edition (23 Sep 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0192805460
- ISBN-13: 978-0192805461
- Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13.4 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 787,962 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
Leonardo : Revised Edition
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Product Description
Review
"A serious book filled with fresh thought.... Kemp has succeeded at something that is possible only after years of reflection."--A. Richard Turner, Los Angeles Times
"Leonardo seen from the inside out.... A series of intense, learned meditations on Leonardesque themes.... Kemp tries to define what Leonardo thought he was doing, and why. He argues, convincingly, that Leonardo was constantly searching for a universal system of proportion--not merely a system of aesthetic proportion, like the famous Golden Mean, but a system of proportion that would explain, as Newton's inverse-square rule of gravity did, two centuries later, the fundamental workings of forces."--Adam Gopnick, The New Yorker
"A leading authority on Leonardo da Vinci, Kemp attempts to set forth a succinct, understandable, unified account of da Vinci's creative and intellectual life.... Fascinating, enlightening, well written, and easy to read."--Library Journal
"Excites the reader's admiration for the restless
Art Quarterly, 1st September 2004
Kemp brings together his expertise with the lightest of touches, in a comprehensible and yet fascinating way.
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First Sentence
THIS SCATHING CRITICISM is not encouraging for any author wishing to capture the totality of Leonardo and to do justice to the huge range of his activities within a brief compass. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
THIS SCATHING CRITICISM is not encouraging for any author wishing to capture the totality of Leonardo and to do justice to the huge range of his activities within a brief compass. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is not a life of Leonardo or indeed a comprehensive guide to his work. It is instead a book which attempts to bring together a scholars passion and his life's learning about Da Vinci. It is fairly short and easy to understand. The book is divided into thematic chapters which attempt to understand Leonardo through exploring themes which appear time and again in his art, his writings and his enthusiasms. There are a good selection of plates and illustrations and a useful chronology and guide to attributed art works at the back, along with an extensive further reading list.
It is clear that this is a work by someone who is truly enthusiastic about his subject and it is this above all else that makes this book so sympathetic and highly readable.
It is clear that this is a work by someone who is truly enthusiastic about his subject and it is this above all else that makes this book so sympathetic and highly readable.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
7 reviews
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Depends on what you are looking for...
13 Nov 2005
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is an excellent historical biography on Leonardo da Vinci. The book is solid facts one after another, mostly taken from surviving documents such as financial transactions and Leonardo's notebooks. The downside is that if you are reading this book for the sake of reading a good book, it can be a tad boring. The writing style is not fluid, perhaps a little choppy at times, since it is so fact-oriented. If you want to know the cold hard facts about Leonardo, this is the book for you (like for a research project). If you are looking for a good read that is a little more subjective you might not like it as much.
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
The Story of an Exceptional Renaissance Man!!!
30 April 2005
Format:Hardcover
+++++
This book by Oxford University Professor of Historical Art Martin Kemp gives the reader the opportunity to "grasp the essential nature of Leonardo da Vinci, both as himself and as a historical phenomenon." Kemp, who has investigated Leonardo for over thirty years, does this through historical documents and through studying mainly Leonardo's drawings and paintings.
A highlight of this book is the inclusion of letters not only written by Leonardo but those written about him or his works. For example, consider this letter from another artist written during the last years of Leonardo's life:
"[The King], being enamoured to such an extraordinary degree of Leonardo's great talents, took such pleasure in hearing him talk that he would only on a few days deprive himself of his company...I cannot resist repeating the words I heard the King say about him...he said that a man had never been born who knew as much as Leonardo, not only in the spheres of painting, sculpture, and architecture, but in that he was a very great philosopher."
This book contains almost twenty-five reproductions of Leonardo's drawings peppered throughout. My personal favorites are Leonardo's engineering drawings and anatomical drawings. There are also twenty mainly color plates (in two sets of ten plates). These consist mainly of reproductions of Leonardo's paintings. My personal favorites are the "Mona Lisa" and the "Last Supper." There is also a "Gallery" of his paintings at the end of the book. This gallery consists of nearly twenty-five reproductions.
The very last section of the book has "Leonardo's Life in Outline." It traces his life from when he was born in 1452 until he died in 1519. This is especially good because it gives the reader, in brief form, an overall view of Leonardo's life.
This book's greatest service is that it separates fact from fiction. Kemp explains: "For the writer of fiction, the license [regarding Leonardo's life] is almost unlimited. Dan Brown's phenomenally successful `The Da Vinci Code' [is an example which presents fictional facts]. In the service of fiction, such unfounded `facts' are fine; as history they perpetrate nonsense. The problem with Brown's "Code" is not the invention of `truth;' but that it has been taken seriously by those who cannot recognize fiction as fiction."
Finally, the only minor problem I had is that the table of contents lists what drawings are found in this book but it does not specify what page these drawings are found on. I found this frustrating if I had to refer to a specific drawing.
In conclusion, this book explores Leonardo da Vinci's life and works. Be sure to read it to discover why, 500 years after his death, Leonardo still grips and inspires us!!
(first published 2004; preface; list of plates and figures; introduction; 6 chapters; main narrative 245 pages; gallery; Leonardo's life in outline; further reading; index)
+++++
This book by Oxford University Professor of Historical Art Martin Kemp gives the reader the opportunity to "grasp the essential nature of Leonardo da Vinci, both as himself and as a historical phenomenon." Kemp, who has investigated Leonardo for over thirty years, does this through historical documents and through studying mainly Leonardo's drawings and paintings.
A highlight of this book is the inclusion of letters not only written by Leonardo but those written about him or his works. For example, consider this letter from another artist written during the last years of Leonardo's life:
"[The King], being enamoured to such an extraordinary degree of Leonardo's great talents, took such pleasure in hearing him talk that he would only on a few days deprive himself of his company...I cannot resist repeating the words I heard the King say about him...he said that a man had never been born who knew as much as Leonardo, not only in the spheres of painting, sculpture, and architecture, but in that he was a very great philosopher."
This book contains almost twenty-five reproductions of Leonardo's drawings peppered throughout. My personal favorites are Leonardo's engineering drawings and anatomical drawings. There are also twenty mainly color plates (in two sets of ten plates). These consist mainly of reproductions of Leonardo's paintings. My personal favorites are the "Mona Lisa" and the "Last Supper." There is also a "Gallery" of his paintings at the end of the book. This gallery consists of nearly twenty-five reproductions.
The very last section of the book has "Leonardo's Life in Outline." It traces his life from when he was born in 1452 until he died in 1519. This is especially good because it gives the reader, in brief form, an overall view of Leonardo's life.
This book's greatest service is that it separates fact from fiction. Kemp explains: "For the writer of fiction, the license [regarding Leonardo's life] is almost unlimited. Dan Brown's phenomenally successful `The Da Vinci Code' [is an example which presents fictional facts]. In the service of fiction, such unfounded `facts' are fine; as history they perpetrate nonsense. The problem with Brown's "Code" is not the invention of `truth;' but that it has been taken seriously by those who cannot recognize fiction as fiction."
Finally, the only minor problem I had is that the table of contents lists what drawings are found in this book but it does not specify what page these drawings are found on. I found this frustrating if I had to refer to a specific drawing.
In conclusion, this book explores Leonardo da Vinci's life and works. Be sure to read it to discover why, 500 years after his death, Leonardo still grips and inspires us!!
(first published 2004; preface; list of plates and figures; introduction; 6 chapters; main narrative 245 pages; gallery; Leonardo's life in outline; further reading; index)
+++++
15 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Doesn't satisfy as biography or academic work but an easy read
8 Dec 2005
Format:Hardcover
Based on other reviews and the author's status as an Oxford professor of art history who has spent years studying Leonardo, I was looking forward to this book. What I found instead was an easy read that is neither fish nor foul. The author waxes sentimental over his stay in "Mona Lisa's room" and takes jibes at Dan Brown fans. His chapters on Leonardo's science describe Leonardo's ideas in detail, with great reverence for Leonardo's intellect, but it would be more interesting to hear Leonardo's ideas assessed according to modern perspective: do today's geologists agree about the previous existence of lakes? Were his math solutions or water treatises worth anything as science? Kemp's book is neither a full, warm biographical portrait, nor an academic assessment of Leonardo's contributions to art and science, but it is short and double-spaced. Beware frequent typos and homonym errors such as "raised to the ground."
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