Leonardo's Notebooks

Leonardo Da Vinci pursued a systematic approach to knowledge, in which understanding of the human body was central and other phenomena were analyzed in that light, or compared to the human body. He offers some fascinating insights about how an artist "sees" subject matter---about how to observe nature and people and try to capture them through the medium of art. I thought his views on geography were quite interesting, for example that a river with many bends in it is an older river.

This is not so much a review of the book itself, but more of my experience buying the book from my phone.

I visited the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit at The Tech Museum in San Jose California. On my way out, I stopped by the museum store and came across this book. After scanning through the book, I decided to buy it. But the price tag of $40 was too rich for me. So - for the first time - I decided to try Amazon from my phone. Sure enough, the book was selling for $26. So I proceeded to place the order. The process was straight forward and took less time than it would have taken to stand in line and pay for the book at the store! I'll be getting the book in a few days.

Amazon... two thumbs up on your mobile site. There's nothing like comparative shopping while in the store and buying right there and then at a better price.

Though there are nice, complete versions of Leonardo da Vinci's Notebooks, this well designed, edited, and packaged book presents the most important and pertinent elements from his Notebooks in a single large format hardcover version that is the perfect presentation for the general audience.

This version of da Vinci's Notebooks presents the contents in sections that group like illustrations and text together: "Beauty, Reason and Art" contains such content as da Vinci on painting, the human figures, and art forms; "Observations and Order" covers anatomy, geography, landscape and the sciences; and "Practical Matters" delves into da Vinci's inventions and experiments, architectural studies and metalwork, as well as sculpture.

The illustrations from the original Notebooks are exceptionally well reproduced in this book and the size and presentation are generous and the main focus throughout the book.

Unless you need access to the entirety of the Notebooks for research purposes, Leonardo's Notebooks as edited by H. Anna Suh, would make the perfect addition to your art or scientific library. It would look darn nice displayed on your coffee table as well.

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As an Art History professor, I am very impressed with Leonardo's Notebooks. This oversized book contains Leonardo da Vinci's detailed sketches, many of which are new to me. In addition, this book provides commentary written by the artist himself on his theories, inventions, plans for artwork, and philosopohies. I've referred this text to fellow professors as a remarkable resource for philosophical beliefs presented by the original Renaissance Man.

The only thing keeping this book from top grade is that the author didn't help with a deduction of Leonardo's letters where it surely was needed - in the anatomical studies for example.
This makes it hard to understand the meaning of the drawings compared with the translated text, because Leonardo's letters(in the drawings) doesn't look like anything from the Roman alphabet. So when the meaning of the letters that appears in the drawings are mentioned in the text, you can't understand what letters goes with what in the drawings, because the text ONLY use the Roman alphabet(and NOT Leonardo's letters as seen in the drawings).

In other words, to fully get the whole meaning of Leonardo's writings and drawings you do need a "Leonardo - Roman alphabet" dictionary.
This is a major set back, and the worst is that the author could have avoided this so easily.

Other than that the book is amazing.