Author Topic: Measuring up to the human body’s perfection in architectural terms  (Read 16843 times)

Joe Carillo

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No doubt most of us have been intrigued and puzzled by the Vitruvian Man, Leonardo da Vinci’s famous drawing of a man in a circle and a square that has become a cultural icon for the nature of genius, the beauty of the human form, and the universality of the human spirit. But how many of us know that the Vitruvian Man is da Vinci’s own self-portrait in which he had stripped himself down to measure up to the human body’s perfection in architectural terms?



In Da Vinci’s Ghost: Genius, Obsession, and How Leonardo Created the World in His Own Image (Free Press, 275 pages), the author Toby Lester makes an enthralling recreation of how the Vitruvian Man came to being and what it represents—as a defining statement about the life and aspirations of an immensely talented but insecure Italian artist in the Middle Ages whose talent could not quite compensate for the social disadvantages posed by his inadequate education, uncertain income, illegitimate birth, and aversion to marriage.

“At a superficial level, the picture is simply a study of individual proportions,” says Lester in his introduction to Da Vinci’s Ghost. “But it’s also something far more subtle and complex. It’s a profound act of philosophical speculation. It’s an idealized self-portrait in which Leonardo, stripped down to his essence, takes his own measure, and in doing so embodies a timeless human hope: that we just might have the power of mind to figure out how we fit into the grand scheme of things.”

Says Cullen Murphy, editor at large of Vanity Fair, in a review of the book: “Like Da Vinci’s famous drawing, Toby Lester’s book is a small wonder—a work of brilliant compression that illuminates a whole world of life and thought. Lester proves himself to be the perfect guide to the Renaissance and beyond—affable, knowledgeable, funny. Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man turns out to be a road map that can take us to remarkable places—once you learn how to read it.”

Read Ingrid D. Rowland’s “Heavenly Body: An artist’s pursuit of symmetry” in the Spring 2012 issue of The American Scholar Book Reviews

Read an excerpt from Toby Lester’s Da Vinci’s Ghost in the npr.org website now! THIS EXCERPT IS NO LONGER VIEWABLE IN THIS SITE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Toby Lester is a contributing editor to The Atlantic for which he has written extensively. A former Peace Corps volunteer and United Nations observer, he wrote The Fourth Part of the World (2009), a book about the map that gave America its name; it became a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers Award and was picked as a Book of the Year by several other publications.
« Last Edit: September 07, 2022, 01:57:46 PM by Joe Carillo »

pipesdaddy

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Re: Measuring up to the human body’s perfection in architectural terms
« Reply #1 on: April 12, 2012, 02:36:11 PM »
Magnificent, indeed. Haven't read the book yet. Have to read it. 

wichitaannie123

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Re: Measuring up to the human body’s perfection in architectural terms
« Reply #2 on: September 25, 2012, 03:03:41 PM »
The genealogy of the concept of "perfection" reaches back beyond Latin, to Greek. The Greek equivalent of the Latin "perfectus" was "teleos." The latter Greek expression generally had concrete referents, such as a perfect physician or flutist, a perfect comedy or a perfect social system. Hence the Greek "teleiotes" was not yet so fraught with abstract and superlative associations as would be the Latin "perfectio" or the modern "perfection." To avoid the latter associations, the Greek term has generally been translated as "completeness" rather than "perfection."