Habits of great artists worth adopting
I’ve recently been to Florence, and I bring you stories.
My first story is about Leonardo Da Vinci. The city starts and continues with Da Vinci. Born in a tiny place outside Florence (where his last name is from), and technically abandoned by his parents, presumed, by many authors, as seeking their validation throughout his life. It’s fair to say though, looking at everything he has left behind (paintings, writings, inventions) he’s the closest we’ve got to an alien appearing within historic context much ahead of his time, in fact, beyond the conventional notion of time.
Here’s what you may already know:
- He was a vegetarian. Imagine that: midst 15th century, when Florence, as well as the rest of the world, was very much riddled with carnivores. By his admission, he loved animals too much to eat them.
- He came up with the first prototypes for a huge part of the technological advancements we know today. The parachute. The helicopter. The diving suit. The printing press enhancements. The self-holding bridge. The endless amount of structures and mechanisms, which, at the heart of the majority of them is a thing as simple as a wooden gear and underlying laws of physics no one had captured well before him.
- He’s the first one who realised that the heart is a muscle. His extensive studies of the human body progressed not only human portrayal within art but within medicine.
Here’s what may be interesting for you to learn, as a designer:
- He was a great advocate of experiments. As contemporaries note, Da Vinci was “not willing to admit himself as an adept of the mainstream knowledge of the time”— in art, in biology, in architecture — he kept absorbing, like a sponge, everything he saw and heard. As many know, he had a habit of writing in a “mirror way” — starting at the right side of the page and moving to the left. The use of a mirror, and a reflection on everything, including oneself, became a leitmotif of his work.
“I say that when you are painting you should take a flat mirror and often look at your work within it, and it will then be seen in reverse, and will appear to be by the hand of some other master, and you will be better able to judge of its faults than in any other way.” — Leonardo’s notebooks
- He was a great advocate for pause and pivot. For him, the reflective part of his practice, the study part, the evaluation part took almost as long, if not longer than the actual doing. That habit had a darker side, too: Many got frustrated with him because of his approach to work — he picked up many things but then would abandon some in favour of what he deemed as more interesting, more worthy of exploration (hi, design generalists!) He wrote a lot about the need for taking distance from whatever is it that one is creating, to reach better outcomes.
“Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.” — Leonardo’s notebooks
While you reflect on these two habits worth considering, it’s time for my second story, about a third habit (or a skill, if you like).
Designers who are just starting on their weird and wonderful craft path, this one is for you. When Filippo Brunelleschi was born, the main Cathedral of Florence, Santa Maria Degli Fiori, stood dome-less for about 80 years with no resolution in sight — no one could think of a solution that would work to build a dome of this size. Brunelleschi studied to be a goldsmith and sculptor, not an architect. He was also (in contrast to da Vinci) a very secretive man and has not left us a great deal that helps to decipher him and his ways about the craft. At the age of 23, he had competed for the sculptural composition on the doors of the baptistery (a prestigious project in the main square of Florence), losing painfully close to his rival, Lorenzo Ghiberti. It was only then he decided to focus on architecture. He entered the competition to complete the dome, with no formal training or experience. Legend has it he had no plans to show the adjudicators— a newbie, competing for the most prestigious project of the city.
He surprised the judges with a challenge, asking them to balance an egg on one end. After each of them failed, Brunelleschi took back the egg and brought it down onto the tabletop with just enough force to impact the shell at one end, effectively flattening the small air space within it so that the egg stood stable and upright.
The panel dismissed his little trick, claiming that any one of them could’ve done that! Brunelleschi pointed out that, nevertheless, not one of them had. They were surprised [or impressed] enough to give him a shot. So he has started building the Dome and completed the project within 16 years. He’d discovered how parabolic curves distribute force tangentially, giving such forms powerful load-bearing properties.
For more fascinating insight on the building works of the largest brick dome in the world, I recommend “How an amateur built the world's biggest dome”.
So next time someone tells you “this has never been done before”, or that years of experience really matter when it comes to brilliance, think about Filippo. And how important it is to have a strong narrative to support your pitch, ideally with a reveal/demonstration that triggers thoughts.
A word on the most useful habit of all: curiosity
Florence is pure inspiration. From the flood marks on every wall, reminding us how fragile is everything that we create (as some of the city parts are technically lower than the level of River Arno, flowing through the city, Florence gets flooded about once a century, much to the deep sadness of the inhabitants) to the newest urban artist studio with icon-like Clet Abraham, who transformed a large portion of the stop signs within Florence into opportunities (challenge yourself to spot some as you move around).
From the San Minato al Monte lovingly overseeing the city to the unapologetic Buchette del vino where the wine used to be sold to the passers-by directly through the building walls within the narrow streets, the city is so densely full of history. There are so many more stories beyond the few I’ve told you and there’s an immense curiosity to be exercised to uncover those.
“Seeing is one of the quickest actions the one can take,” Da Vinci wrote in his notebooks. Inspiration is often a direct outcome of that. And if you’ve noticed something new about the city you’re in today, my work here is done :)
All comments left here will reach me, Aleks Melnikova, founder of Cosmic Velocity. Come to us for good design, inclusive research and team training.
