I
was initially pleased that Shlain wrote about Leonardo’s childhood traumas
because it fit my own paradigm of the creative poetic mind. Leonardo was the
illegitimate child of a peasant girl and a rich city boy. His mother, whose
marriage to another man had been arranged by Leonardo’s father’s family, raised
him in the countryside. But, when Leonardo’s biological father married a 16-year-old
girl, he moved his now 5-year-old son back into his own household, separating
him from his biological mother. The new stepmother died in childbirth. Leonardo’s
father married three more times, producing ten more children. This all sounds
highly traumatic, but Leonardo would be well raised by his grandparents and his
uncle Francesco (Capra: 66).
When Leonardo’s grandfather died and Francesco
married, even these losses led to a significant gain for the now 12 year old.
Leonardo left the farm for the beautiful, artistic city of Florence with his
father. He began an apprenticeship with an important artist and craftsman, a
friend of his father’s, several years later. According to Fritjof Capra (2007),
this intellectual and creative environment “shaped” Leonardo’s “entire approach
to art and science (73).” He had at his disposal all the equipment and
materials he needed for his many inventions in this workshop. In a later move
to Milan, he was given a large workspace to fulfill his artistic duties to the
court and do research on his burgeoning scientific and mathematical interests, especially
geometry, along with access to the large and important library at the
University of Pavia.
Leonardo
led a seemingly charmed life. He was considered by one and all to be physically
beautiful; a flamboyant dresser; loving, eloquent and charming; an athlete; an
excellent horseman; a musician, and serenely self-confident (Capra: 18-21). Nonetheless,
at the societal level, his illegitimacy barred him from attending university;
he did not begin learning Latin, necessary for reading most scholarly works, until
he was 40 years old. This very constraint may have impelled his insatiable
scientific inquiries through direct observation and his need for perfection in
his art. We should also recall that he was a product of his times. Being a
“Renaissance” man required knowing everything
then, as it does now.
Yet,
an underlying difference in Leonardo’s brain lateralization cannot be denied. Shlain
(2014) quotes Leonardo’s Treatise on
Painting (1651), which advised artists how to “quicken the spirit of
invention”:
- You should look at certain walls strained with damp, or at stones of uneven colour. If you have to invent some backgrounds you will be able to see in these the likeness of divine landscapes, adorned with mountains, ruins, rocks, woods, great plains, hills and valleys in great variety; and expressions of faces and clothes and an infinity of things which you will be able to reduce to their complete and proper forms. In such walls the same thing happens as in the sound of bells, in whose stroke you may find every named word which you can imagine (61).
While possibly good advice, it tells us more about the extent of Leonardo’s own active imagination and his ability to convert environmental sights and sounds into a new vision or voice, transformed from a stain on a wall or heard in clanging bells. Leonardo’s advice notwithstanding, this is not a universal skill. Rather, it is more likely encountered in altered states of consciousness, from whatever the source—sleep deprivation, isolation, drug usage, or organic injury to the brain, such as epilepsy or head trauma. A left-hander’s bilaterally organized brain, with an enhanced right hemisphere, could make associative visual or auditory connections that typical minds could not.[1]
Shlain
was one of the first writers to accent the left versus right hemispheric
differences in creativity, based on important theorists of the 1980’s. I agree
with him that myths derive from left-hemispheric confabulated stories trying to
make sense of anomalous right-hemispheric voices and visions. Shlain says,
- Although each hemisphere has its own preferences and approaches, each contributes to make a whole person only when the corpus callosum integrates the two. But in the process of generating a major creative insight, a disconnect must occur between the two halves. Arthur Koestler called this the ‘hemispheric bisociation’ (91-92) . . . [Koestler also described the act of creation as “thinking aside” and it was clear to him that there could be no truth without beauty, whether artistic, mathematical, or scientific. If you look closely at the tattered cover of my 1989 edition of Koestler's classic, you'll see that the figure is tossing about pages of Leonardo's drawings, a poem, and musical notes. [These were the days when cover art was beautifully enigmatic, not diagrammatic or technological.]
Still describing the typical mind, Shlain says the “the right brain is essentially bereft of language, the description in words of how the creative process proceeds is practically impossible. Ask artists or scientists how they arrived at their most novel and creative work, and you will no doubt receive either an inarticulate answer or the left brain’s confabulation (98-9).” He does not postulate that language can be dominant on the right or spread out in both hemispheres.
Beyond
his reliance on science mostly from the 1980’s, Shlain comes to this odd conclusion
about creativity:
- Creativity is at its base a combination of fear and lust. Danger and sex are the fundamental processes that artists traditionally call upon to create a work of art. Of course, he or she is not aware that these are the root causes. Creativity begins with perceiving a pattern, a feature, or an alternative use for a common object.[2] After recognizing something novel, the artist breaks down the observation into its component parts. This is primarily a left-brained function, reductionist and analytic. An artist will reassemble the pieces into a new and compelling manner that others will recognize as art. But the work of art must contain ‘passion.’ It must be a work of ‘love.’ He or she must be in a nearly ‘orgasmic’ state to produce it. Our word enthusiasm comes form Dionysian enthousiasmos, a wild state of holy inspiration. Orgasm is a right-hemispheric function. Love is rooted in the right brain. Ecstasy is an emotion experienced at the right of the corpus callosum (100-101).”
Pursuing
Leonardo’s cerebral differences, Shlain explains that the anterior commissure, which
connects the temporal lobes, can be as much as 30 percent larger in women than men, 15% larger in gay men than straight
men and larger still in both left-handed men and women. Most authors agree that
Leonardo was left-handed and possibly gay, so he would indeed have had a more
bilateral brain. Fritjof Capra (2007) says the artist was ambidextrous, able to
write equally well with both hands.
What
about the mirror handwriting? Some authors agree that Leonardo wrote backwards
so as not to smear the ink (Shlain; Nathan and Zöllner). Shlain adds that
“[l]eft-handers must employ hook handwriting to avoid this distressing trait
when they write from left to right (173).” Again, as a left-hander, and with
confirmation from others on my blog post “The Eye of the Beholder,” I know
that all left-handers do not hook their hand when writing. It depends on
whether they are left or right dominant for language (President Clinton
does not hook his hand. President Obama does). If indeed Leonardo’s mirror
writing was designed to avoid smearing the ink, it would put his language function
more squarely in the left hemisphere, reserving the right for visuo-spatial
processing. The fact that he drew facial profiles to the right and his
background hatching ran top left to bottom right shows a left-hander at work
(Nathan and Zöllner: 137, 196).
His impressive maps were in part drawn on Ptolemy’s Geographia, but he was also a mountaineer. His aerial views may well have been part visionary, part actual, part imaginary, like so much of his work (image below in Nathan and Zöllner: 484-5). Shlain suggests that Leonardo practiced remote viewing to get these views on paper. I will not discount the possibility of non-local perception, given the extent of Leonardo’s bilateral dominance, with enhanced right-hemispheric functioning.
His impressive maps were in part drawn on Ptolemy’s Geographia, but he was also a mountaineer. His aerial views may well have been part visionary, part actual, part imaginary, like so much of his work (image below in Nathan and Zöllner: 484-5). Shlain suggests that Leonardo practiced remote viewing to get these views on paper. I will not discount the possibility of non-local perception, given the extent of Leonardo’s bilateral dominance, with enhanced right-hemispheric functioning.
Shlain recognized that Leonardo’s language was highly metaphorical and that poetry is right-hemispheric language, as
professor and poet Julie Kane has explained. Shlain’s conclusion, specifically
with regard to the Renaissance artist, is well put, but requires refinement: “Leonardo
had all the characteristics of the brain that would allow for an increased
sensibility to aesthetics, harmony, and creativity. They were present as the
result of differences in the organization of the possibly gay, left-hander’s,
musical, backward-writing, ambidextrous brain (175).”
While
I am indebted to Shlain for the biographical details on Leonardo da Vinci’s early
life, and agree in principle with the bilateral thesis, we need a fuller
picture to understand the artist’s mind and practices. Capra, for instance,
says Leonardo’s notes for his drawings were not only written backwards, they
were “disjointed,” using “highly idiosyncratic” spelling and syntax, no spaces
between words, and virtually no punctuation other than periods. It is quite possible
that he was dyslexic, with compensatory visual prowess, or, possibly, that he
was merely in a rush to get the words
down, while perfecting his images, over
and over again. Leonardo himself asserted that drawings were much important
than words and painting more important than poetry (Capra: 39, 143).
Leonardo also did more drawings than paintings when usually the reverse is true for artists (Nathan and Zöllner: 12). An enormous percentage of his works has been lost and no studies remain for the Mona Lisa (Nathan and Zöllner: 16). What is especially interesting to me is his visuo-spatial capacity. Rather than drawing from a model, he was often drawing on memory alone and actually sought out certain faces on the street to be captured on paper only after returning to his study.
Leonardo also did more drawings than paintings when usually the reverse is true for artists (Nathan and Zöllner: 12). An enormous percentage of his works has been lost and no studies remain for the Mona Lisa (Nathan and Zöllner: 16). What is especially interesting to me is his visuo-spatial capacity. Rather than drawing from a model, he was often drawing on memory alone and actually sought out certain faces on the street to be captured on paper only after returning to his study.
The
fact that Leonardo never systematized his scientific work, according to Capra, shows
him to be deliberately secretive, making it more difficult for others to steal
his ideas. He even "designed his study so that the platform holding his work
could be lowered through the floor to the story below . . . to hide it from
inquisitive eyes whenever he was not working (Capra: 27)." Critical
transcriptions that do exist to decipher Leonardo’s mirror writing, which has
proven to be "highly eloquent, often witty, and at times movingly beautiful and
poetic (Capra: 166-8)," suggest a right-hemispheric provenance for language.
Even
Leonardo’s study of science sounds right hemispheric, because his focus was on
patterns, not logical sequences. The Dyslexic Society claims many artists and inventors
among their ranks, including Leonardo. Capra (2007) realized that:
- Leonardo’s systematic studies of living and nonliving forms amounted to a science of quality and wholeness that was fundamentally different from the mechanistic science of Galileo and Newton. At the core of his investigations, it seemed to me, was a persistent exploration of patterns, interconnecting phenomena from a vast range of fields (Capra: xviii).
Capra
cited an exhibit of Leonardo’s drawings at the Hayward Gallery in London, which
summarized the master’s art as "part of a vision embracing a profound sense of
the interrelatedness of things (Capra: xix)." I see it as analogical thinking (right-oriented)
at its height, combined with an unprecedented attention to detail and an obsessive
need to depict the real, as it actually is (left-oriented), as well as moving
through time and space (non-local). Science and art were synthesized, even
synchronized, showing whole brain simultaneous processing. Leonardo also had a prodigious
memory, capable of holding enormous amounts of visual information in mind
before committing it to paper or canvas, which, complementing his insatiable,
intellectual curiosity, provided the intuitive means and the practical skill to
get whatever he saw right, with a
minimal use of words.
Leonardo
never accepted blindly the words in classical texts; rather, he did his own
experiments and directly observed nature to decide for himself (Capra: 156). As
to art, he could do both linear perspective drawings with mathematical
precision and hyperrealistic human
and animal drawings, the former left hemispheric and the latter, right
hemispheric, in my opinion. His art was scientific and his science artistic,
accenting one side or the other at will, depending on the eyes’ focus and the
mind’s intent. Leonardo’s vision, thought processes and memory were so keen that
intuition, a form of cognition for him, permitted him to make inventive leaps
centuries ahead of his time.
Mind
must have a body and a brain, so Leonardo did not believe in disembodied
spirits or an afterlife. But he did believe in the importance of the mother,
beautifully expressed in this passage from his notebook that accompanied his
splendid drawing of the fetus in the womb:
- One and the same soul governs
these two bodies; and the desires, fears, and pains are common to this creature
as to all other animated parts. . . . The soul of the mother . . . in due time
awakens the soul which is to be its inhabitant. This at first remains asleep
under the guardianship of the soul of the mother who nourishes and vivifies it
through the umbilical vein (in Capra: 254).
Capra says succinctly: "Never again . . . was so much intellectual and artistic genius embodied in a single human being (259)." Leonardo apparently agreed, acknowledging about himself:
Read me, O
reader; if in my words you find delight,
For rarely in the
world will one such as I be born again.
Capra, Fritjof. 2007. The
Science of Leonardo: Inside the Mind of
the Great Genius of the Renaissance. New York: Doubleday.
Kane, Julie. 2004. "Poetry As Right-Hemispheric
Language."Journal of Consciousness Studies, 11 (5-6): 21-59.
Koestler, Arthur. 1964/1989. The Act of Creation. London and New York: Arkana.
Nathan, Johannes and Zöllner, Frank. 2014. Leonardo da Vinci
1452-1519: The Graphic Work. Cologne: Taschen.
Shlain, Leonard. 2014. Leonardo's Brain: Understanding Da
Vinci's Creative Genius. Guilford, CT and Helena, MT: Lyons
Press.
the Great Genius of the Renaissance. New York: Doubleday.
Kane, Julie. 2004. "Poetry As Right-Hemispheric
Language."Journal of Consciousness Studies, 11 (5-6): 21-59.
Koestler, Arthur. 1964/1989. The Act of Creation. London and New York: Arkana.
Nathan, Johannes and Zöllner, Frank. 2014. Leonardo da Vinci
1452-1519: The Graphic Work. Cologne: Taschen.
Shlain, Leonard. 2014. Leonardo's Brain: Understanding Da
Vinci's Creative Genius. Guilford, CT and Helena, MT: Lyons
Press.
[1] As a left-handed,
right-dominant person myself, I can provide a telling example. I once made a
journey from the US to France with a long layover in London. Not having slept
the entire night in Heathrow Airport, I boarded a small plane bound for
Toulouse and immediately fell asleep. In that moment, I saw a static hypnagogic image of a
ship crossing the English Channel with a crusader standing at the helm, white
tunic and bright red cross gleaming. After arriving in Toulouse, and driving
with my son to my destination on unfamiliar roads, I fell again into a fitful sleep.
In the morning, I awoke to frightening images of “monkey men” projected
onto the rough-hewn walls of the medieval stone house where I was staying.
[2] This is a common
scientific study method, which, I consider unsuitable for judging artistic
creativity.
