What Made Leonardo da Vinci a Genius?

The Duke of Milan asked Leonardo to paint The Last Supper on the wall of a dining hall of a monastery.

Leonardo doesn’t just capture a moment but captures a dramatic narrative. At first, you see Christ's hand, then, as you move up, you stare at his face as he is saying, “One of you shall betray me.” Then as your eyes move across the picture, you see the questions rippling outward as each of the apostles reacts with, "Is it me, Lord?"

Leonardo considered himself an engineer and architect, which he did with great passion. But his first job was as a theatrical producer.

Here, he learned how to do tricks with perspective. The stage in a theatre recedes faster and looks deeper than it is. Even a table onstage would be tilted slightly so you can see it. This is what we see in "The Last supper." Likewise. we can see the gestures of the characters exaggerated.

His theatrical production led him to mechanical props, like flying machines and a helicopter screw, designed to lower angels in some performances.

Leonardo was self-taught. He didn’t go to school because he was born out of wedlock.

• He loved the flow of the streams that went into the Arno River. So he studied them and continued until his deathbed to draw the spiral forms to figure out the math behind them.
• He noticed how air currents formed little flurries as they went over curved wings of birds to keep them in the air, similar to aeroplanes.

That translates both into science and his art.

To be creative, you must be interested in many fields rather than be a specialist.

Leonardo da Vinci was interested in everything in the universe, including how we fit into it. He tried to answer questions such as, Why do people yawn? Why is the sky blue?