The Curse of Extraordinary Genius

Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest minds of all time, left the world long before he had the opportunity to share the extent of his genius with us.

How sad that we only definitively have about a dozen paintings that we can attribute to him and set our gazes, in marvel to. Some of these awe-inspiring pieces are not even complete. Our minds will forever have to insignificantly fill in the missing gaps of his masterful intent. Even sadder yet, is the fact that although records conclude that he was additionally a sculptor (no doubt a virtuoso, knowing the breadth of his talent), today, no known example remains for us to study.

Why don't we have more incredible artwork from a man who walked the earth for sixty-seven years? We can almost conclusively ascribe this to his unimaginable genius. Not only was Leonardo a gifted painter (think of Mona Lisa and the Last Supper), but he was also a gifted architect and engineer who even made extraordinary and innovative contributions to the study of mathematics, geology, botany, anatomy and astronomy. Of course his sketches, thankfully, which number in the hundreds, and his irreplaceable notebooks with thousands of invaluable entries, provide us with the tiniest of glimpses into his remarkable and ever-astounding mind.

With a scope of expertise that reached far beyond the depth of knowledge and artistic talent that most people only dream to attain, it stands to reason that he would have had to share time with, waffling back and forth between, the vast array of interests that he held significant, to contribute to.

To add insult to injury, if we hold true to the idea that extraordinary genius is a curse, then the fact that Leonardo never married and thus never had children, subsequently passes his curse onto us, having deprived us of the opportunity to hope a small piece of his genius might live on in his descendants.

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