He Lived Before His Time

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 666, 10 April 1952, Page 7

He Lived Before His Time

AFTER five hundred years the name of Leonardo Da Vinci appears as boldly as ever in the catalogue of genius. The wide range of activities in which Leonardo excelled astounds the modern mind, accustomed to the concept of specialisation; though in Renaissance times, of course, it was still theoretically possible for a man to "make all knowledge his province." The Italian master-of-all-trades made contributions to architecture, engineering and the science of fortification that were valued in his own day, and his scientific research and findings set marks which were not surpassed for generations. In all these fields Leonardo worked energetically and with an ability as impressive as that of any of his great contemporaries. But it was Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting which brought the 15th Century Florentine the immortality which assures him remembrance on April 15, the occasion of the quincentenary of his birth. To commemorate this anniversary, 1YC has arranged to broadcast an half-hour talk, Leonardo Da Vinci, by A. R. D. Fairburn. It will be heard that evening at 7.30. It has been said of Leonardo that "History tells of no man gifted in the same degree .. ." And it is evident that in him at least quantity did not deny quality. Art and science were fields that claimed him equally, and whereas in painting and sculpture he worked along traditional lines, as a scientist Leonardo worked alone. In science, then, as in engineering, he was a pioneer, but the striving for perfection in art and the search for ‘in science were tempered in Leonardo by an outlook and’ character that could order all these things to their proper perspective. In his later years he produced such a wealth of’ scientific data that much of it was not understood or put to use for centuries. It would be difficult to find one man ‘who. contributed as widely to human knowledge as Leonardo did. The Last Supper or the Mona Lisa would have sufficed to win him immortality, but for Leonardo Da Vinci it was not enough to be anything less than a genius in everything he set himself to do,