Leonardo Da Vinci: The Daedalian Mythmaker [Hardcover]

Giancarlo Maiorino (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1992

This study is the first to consider the whole body of Leonardo's works with an eye to a comprehensive interpretation that combines both cultural history and the history of details. According to Maiorino, Leonardo's was a myth making mode of activity that had a Daedalian range and affected art and technology alike. As both artist and inventor, Leonardo did not separate reason from experience, empiricism from abstraction, an attitude Maiorino characterizes as 'Anti-Humanism.' Rather than accepting the earlier view that the culture of the Renaissance was divided, he argues that anti-Humanism was present from the start in such founders as Petrarch and Alberti and continued to be a current in later authors and artists; hence the significance of Leonardo to Humanism and to Baroque and Renaissance culture at large.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This book is a coherent discussion of Leonardo's various undertakings in music, weapons design, inventions practical and fantastic from the notebooks, and of course, the paintings. Maiorino's delicate use of Bakhtin's concept of dialogue to encompass the complex relation of humanist/anti-humanist tendencies in Leonardo and his world is exemplary in its use of theory to illuminate practice. --Michael Holquist, Yale University

Maiorino gives the reader a fresh look at Leonardo that clarifies the parts of his enterprise without sacrificing the whole. Indeed, dialogism and Daedalian myth making provide a holistic grasp of Leonardo that is intuitive, explanatory, and illuminating. It is surprising and satisfying how often Maiorino is able to offer fresh insights and perspectives. --James V. Morollo, Columbia University

About the Author

Giancarlo Maiorino is Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of Renaissance Studies at Indiana University. He is the author of Adam 'New Born and Perfect': The Renaissance Promise of Externity (Indiana, 1987), The Cornucopian Mind and the Baroque Unity of the Arts (Penn State, 1990), and The Portrait of Eccentricity: Arcimboldo and the Mannerist Grotesque (Penn State, 1991).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 306 pages
• Publisher: Pennsylvania State Univ Pr (Txt) (August 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0271008172
• ISBN-13: 978-0271008172
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #436,690 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deep, December 5, 2001

By 

Valmore Blastow Jr. (Rockland , Me.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Leonardo Da Vinci: The Daedalian Mythmaker (Hardcover)

This work simply goes way beyond any other review of Leonardo I have read. Based on a analytical disection of Leonardo's efforts not only of art yet his reasoning to create his masterpieces.The book borders on passing into a new dimension the one Leonardo attempted to enter. " OH wretched mortals open your eyes" (L) This work is capable of comparing the Art, the Expression, the Daily or instant feelings relative to the change, as the Human evolved during this period. Comparing God, Man, Nature, and Beast as they changed the World we live in.