Here are 100 books that Leonardo Da Vinci fans have personally recommended if you like
Leonardo Da Vinci.
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I fell in love with art when I was 14 on a trip to Florence with my parents. From that moment on there was hardly an exhibition in London I didn’t go and see. Over the last 20 years, I have made scores of documentaries (Art Safari) and podcasts (Art Bust) about art and written books that explore how the arts and culture intersect with economics, society, and politics. I love to research and tell stories about art: behind the most beautiful objects there often lie the most intriguing of tales, where intellect and imagination collide with ambition, greed, and vanity.
The definitive account of Leonardo’s life and work by one of the world’s greatest Leonardo scholars, magnificently illustrated, clearly written, admirably objective.
Frank was very generous in his advice to me, as I wrote my own book about Leonardo, though he generally takes a more favourable view of the Saudi Salvator Mundi than I do. It’s a big book but easy to dip in and out of with its Catalogue Raisonée structure of an account of the artist's life followed by essays on each painting.
Unmatched in his ingenuity, technical prowess, and curiosity, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) epitomizes the humanistic ideal of the Renaissance man: a peerless master of painting, sculpture, cartography, anatomy, architecture-and more. Simultaneously captivating art historians, collectors, and the millions who flock yearly to admire his works, Leonardo's appeal is as diffuse as were his preoccupations. His images permeate nearly every facet of Western culture-The Vitruvian Man is engraved into millions of Euro coins, The Last Supper is considered the single most reproduced religious painting in history, and the Mona Lisa has entranced countless artists and observers for centuries.
As a performance psychologist, I’ve spent my career supporting high-performers on their path toward mastery. I founded Finding Mastery, a high-performance psychology consulting agency. Our primary focus is helping leaders, teams, and organizations solve the most dynamic and complex human performance challenges.
Walter Isaacson’s biography is not just a mere recounting of the life of a Renaissance genius; it is an exploration into the mind of a man whose curiosity knew no bounds.
Isaacson details how that curiosity, combined with his ability to observe and question the world around him, led to groundbreaking insights and inventions.
This resonates deeply with my own pursuit of understanding human potential and performance.
The #1 New York Times bestseller from Walter Isaacson brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography that is "a study in creativity: how to define it, how to achieve it...Most important, it is a powerful story of an exhilarating mind and life" (The New Yorker).
Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo da Vinci's astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson "deftly reveals an intimate Leonardo" (San Francisco Chronicle) in a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo's genius was based on skills we can improve…
I fell in love with art when I was 14 on a trip to Florence with my parents. From that moment on there was hardly an exhibition in London I didn’t go and see. Over the last 20 years, I have made scores of documentaries (Art Safari) and podcasts (Art Bust) about art and written books that explore how the arts and culture intersect with economics, society, and politics. I love to research and tell stories about art: behind the most beautiful objects there often lie the most intriguing of tales, where intellect and imagination collide with ambition, greed, and vanity.
Here we shift the focus to what it’s like being a Leonardist. Yes, that is a word! Oxford professor Martin Kemp is one of the world’s most in-demand Leonardo scholars. His inbox is full of emails from strangers who think they have an undiscovered Leonardo in their attic. He rebuilds Leonardo’s flying machines for museum exhibitions. And when a stolen Leonardo da Vinci painting is recovered, he gets a call from the police.
Somehow Kemp manages to be self-regarding and self-deprecating, accessible, and a little superior at the same time, as he whisks you along on his adventures in Leonardoland.
Living with Leonardo is a set of highly focused memoirs, a personal journey interwoven with historical research that encapsulates the author's relationship with Leonardo da Vinci over more than half a century.
We learn of his encounters with the vast population that surrounds Leonardo: great and lesser academics, collectors and curators, devious dealers and unctuous auctioneers, major scholars and authors and pseudohistorians and fantasists; but also how he has grappled with swelling legions of 'Leonardo loonies', walked on the eggshells of vested interests in academia and museums, and fended off fusillades of non-Leonardos, sometimes more than one a week. Kemp…
I fell in love with art when I was 14 on a trip to Florence with my parents. From that moment on there was hardly an exhibition in London I didn’t go and see. Over the last 20 years, I have made scores of documentaries (Art Safari) and podcasts (Art Bust) about art and written books that explore how the arts and culture intersect with economics, society, and politics. I love to research and tell stories about art: behind the most beautiful objects there often lie the most intriguing of tales, where intellect and imagination collide with ambition, greed, and vanity.
Here’s the one to get to introduce your children to Leonardo da Vinci – a pop-up book with gloriously beautiful drawings and 3D models of Leonardo’s inventions, which included airplanes, a submarine, a parachute, helicopter, armoured vehicle, and a crossbow-machine gun.
Aside from the renovation of the sewers and plumbing of a Florentine church, none of Leonardo’s technological designs are ever known to have been built and tested, which leaves us with the question of whether he was more of a dreamer than a doer. I think this would work for 6-12-year-olds.
The most significant creations of Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci come to life in the pages of this lavishly illustrated pop-up book. Published to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Leonardo's death, this elaborate collectible reveals the intricacy and importance of his designs for robots, flying machines, and other timeless inventions. The 3-D models are based on the master's actual drawings and accompanied by his notes.
A practising artist for more than 60 years, my main source of inspiration is people and the natural world. I work in a variety of media including painting, sculpture, and printmaking. Drawing is the foundation of my art and I always keep a sketchbook handy. As a left-hander in a right-handed world, drawing became my main means of expression from an early age, when I instinctively wrote back-to-front with my left hand but was made to use my right. In addition to my art practice, I have taught drawing and developed a teaching method based on 7 principles that are outlined in Draw Like da Vinci.
This is my favorite book on drawings by Leonardo, with the best from his broad œuvre of head studies, figures, children, anatomy, plants, horses, mechanics, buildings, water dynamics, and aerial landscapes. The quality of the color reproductions is superb. The text is insightful with quotes from Leonardo. I love the silverpoint figure drawings with white chalk highlights on blue paper that Leonardo prepared himself. Leonardo’s understanding of anatomy, combined with the flesh-colored line of oxidized metal, make the figures leap from the page.
I was astonished to learn that Leonardo used black chalk under-drawing in his anatomical ink studies. The correlation between Leonardo’s studies and his paintings is enlightening – in drawings forThe Last Supper, Leonardo expresses the anguish in the head of St Philip with a few skillful lines and captures the look of disdain in the head of Judas in red chalk on red ground. I…
The full range of Leonardo's genius is revealed in this elegant book, which reproduces for the first time many unfamiliar drawings from the masters hand as well as more widely known works.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was arguably the greatest draftsman in the history of Western art. Best known as a painter, he also excelled as sculptor, architect, musician, anatomist, botanist, engineer, geologist, and mapmaker. But since he completed few of his projects, most of his work is known to us only through his drawings and notes. This selection of 100 sheets from the collection at Windsor Castle are presented…
I've been drawing for over 68 years and carrying a sketchbook for over 60 of those years. I've seen success as an author, I'm an award-winning illustrator of books and magazines and animated many classic Disney features. Am I an expert on sketching humans and animals? ...No. I'm constantly learning in my effort to capture humans and animals in action by following the basic principles of drawing as they apply to quick sketching. My learning is aided by these books as I prepare lesson plans or the encouragement and inspiration found within their pages. I'm married to LaVonne, my high school sweetheart of 50 years, and have three grown children and six grandchildren.
This book laid the foundation of the importance of anatomy for me. I was first introduced to the pages as a college student and over fifty years later I use it as reference for myself and the students I teach. The author, through the use of his thorough, detailed illustrations, charts, photographs and explanations guide us through a maze of complicated body parts. His mastery of the human body allows him to visually present this complex topic into easily understandable material. The information contained within its pages has also been invaluable to me over the years as a constant reference in my quick sketching, illustration, and animation projects.
Stephen Rogers Peck's Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist remains unsurpassed as a manual for students. It includes sections on bones, muscles, surface anatomy, proportion, equilibrium, and locomotion. Other unique features are sections on the types of human physique, anatomy from birth to old age, an orientation on racial anatomy, and an analysis of facial expressions. The wealth of information offered by the Atlas ensures its place as a classic for the study of the human form.
Losing something is exceedingly difficult to accept, however, in sharing my story I hope it gives the personal motivation to recover the things that have been taken away. There is light in a tunnel you just must find it, my story I hope gives you that light.
Being exasperated on how muscles function is performed, I recommend The Muscle Book which assisted me in understanding my anatomy. The book helped me understand the moves needed to be performed for my recovery, for each muscle there is straightforward information, including common problems, signs of weakness, and self-massage for first aid. It provides anatomical terminology and clearly outlined reference pages.
How does the body work? How do I spot imbalances? What can I do to help myself? Answer to these questions and more are found in THE MUSCLE BOOK. Discover the major muscles and what they do, how to spot weaknesses and practical tips on preventing injury. Whether you are a truck driver with a stiff neck or a yoga teacher helping someone recover from back pain, this book makes anatomy interesting and applicable.The book clearly identifies all major muscles of the human body, and shows how they work. For each muscle there is straightforward information including common problems, signs…
I never had a real career. Closest I came was the Air Force Reserve for 27 years. Along the way, I built fighter-vs-fighter computer models for the Defense Department, served as an advisor to a Saudi Air Force prince, led a team that designed a replacement for the Air Force’s A-10 tankbuster (which was never built, unfortunately), sold C-130 transport aircraft in Saudi Arabia, taught statistics in business school, became a yoga instructor, and did PR work in Atlanta. Starting in 1975, I collaborated a little with a retired Air Force colonel, John Boyd, creator of the infamous “OODA loop.” I was never a published author in the US, although I am in India, Portugal, and Japan.
Your parents always told you to “Sit up straight and don’t slouch when you walk.” Why is this good advice? What are all those bumps along your back and what does it mean if they start to hurt? What is “aerobic exercise” and is it better for you than weight lifting? How do cuts heal, and how does the body fight infections (and pandemics)? What does our brain do while we’re asleep? An anatomy & physiology text can provide the answers to those and thousands of other questions about something we inhabit 24 hours of every day. Here’s one I used in my yoga training. Textbooks tend to be expensive, however, so you may want to look around — there’s even a “For Dummies” book on A&P, which looks pretty good, especially at one-tenth the price of a textbook.
Using Art Effectively to Teach the Toughest Topics in A&P
Fundamentals of Anatomy & Physiology helps students succeed in the challenging A&P course with an easy-to-understand narrative, precise visuals, and steadfast accuracy. With the 11th Edition, the author team draws from recent research exploring how students use and digest visual information to help students use art more effectively to learn A&P. New book features encourage students to view and consider figures in the textbook, and new narrated videos guide students through complex physiology figures to help them deconstruct and better understand complicated processes. Instructors can…
My name is James Gurney and I've been a professional illustrator for National Geographic and Scientific American for over 40 years. Although I went to art school, everything I know about drawing and painting comes from studying art instruction books, and from sketching directly from nature. I'm best known for writing and illustrating the New York Times bestselling Dinotopia book series, published in 32 countries and 18 languages. I designed 15 dinosaur stamps for USPS and a set of five dinosaur stamps for Australia Post. My originals have been shown in over 35 solo museum exhibitions. My book Color and Light has sold over 200k copies and was Amazon's #1 bestselling book on painting for over a year.
This is a useful reference book, dominated by large and carefully drawn plates. The animal kingdom is represented by a small number of familiar domesticated mammals: horse, dog, cow, and goat, together with a lion. Each animal is shown in neutral poses in side, top, and front views, with skeletal and muscular dissections for comparison.
"Highly recommended as one of the very few books on the subject worthy of being used an an authoritative guide." — Design "Illustrators, sculptors, and taxidermists who draw or model animals will welcome this new revised edition." — Natural History Here are 288 remarkably lifelike drawings of animals, furnishing artists and students with an easy-to-follow method of instruction in the drawing of horses, dogs, lions, cows and bulls, stags, and goats. So detailed and so accurate are these drawings that this book has long been a classic work of its kind. The animals are shown in three ways: external full…
Losing something is exceedingly difficult to accept, however, in sharing my story I hope it gives the personal motivation to recover the things that have been taken away. There is light in a tunnel you just must find it, my story I hope gives you that light.
Learning anatomy requires more than pictures and labels. It requires a way “into” the subject—a means of making sense of what is being shown. Anatomy of the Moving Body addresses that need with a simple yet complete study of the body's complex system of bones, muscles, and joints, and how they function. Beautifully illustrated with 3D images, contains lectures that guide you through this challenging interior landscape. Description of each part of the body in brief, manageable sections, with components described singly or in small groups.
A complete, lecture-based anatomy course that covers the muscles, bones, and joints of the moving body—perfect for dancers and movement-oriented therapists
Learning anatomy requires more than pictures and labels. It requires a way “into” the subject—a means of making sense of what is being shown. Anatomy of the Moving Body addresses that need with a simple yet complete study of the body's complex system of bones, muscles, and joints, and how they function. Beautifully illustrated with over one hundred 3D images, this second edition contains thirty-one lectures that guide readers through this challenging interior landscape. Author Theodore Dimon Jr. describes…
