Man out of time: The enduring art and science of Leonardo da Vinci

Most people know Leonardo da Vinci as the painter of the Mona Lisa, whose enigmatic smile has fascinated people for generations. But it's not just his art that endures: da Vinci was a polymath inventor whose ideas were far ahead of his time—even today.

“A lot of his inventions, if you look around, have influenced how we've evolved as a human race,” said Grande Exhibitions production manager Jason Brown.

Da Vinci's creative genius allowed him to design many technological advancements in the late 1400s and early 1500s that materialized many centuries later, such as military tanks that became war machinies only in the 20th century.

But these ideas remained in Da Vinci's manuscripts and were never actualized until the modern era.

Grande Exhibitions' "Da Vinci – The Genius," a travelling exhibit that showcases over 200 exhibit pieces, features models of these designs using materials and technology that would have been available to the Renaissance man in the 14th and 15th centuries. Most of the models are made of wood and thick canvas.



^{All photos by Roehl Niño Bautista, GMA News}


War machines

“Da Vinci was a pacifist, but he needed to pay his bills like everybody else,” Brown said. “He would contract to the military groups at the time. He would do commissions on his artwork in order to pay his bills.”

In the middle of the venue is the Carro Armato – a wooden circular tank designed to fit eight people, but was downsized to fit exhibit halls. It is one of Da Vinci's many war machine inventions: an armored vehicle that could move in all directions.

Over at one side, inconspicuously placed below portraits of Da Vinci's drawings, is a multi-directional gun machine – the kind of thing you'll only find in video games – that can shoot multiple cannons at the same time.

In another corner are steel bullets the size of water bottles.

To skies and waters

Da Vinci drew flying machines and mechanisms that could have allowed human flight 400 years before the Wright brothers invented the first airplane.

“So he was thinking these ideas in the late 1400s and the early 1500s and humans didn't actually fly until the early 1900s,” Brown explained. “It's really amazing how far-ranging his intelligence and and his genius went.”

Another sizeable item in the exhibit is a swirl of white canvas towering above onlookers' heads: the Aerial Screw, an early version of a helicopter propeller.

Also hanging overhead is a parachute made of canvas and what looks like an earlier rendition of a glider, also made of wood and canvas.

At the Hydraulic and Aquatic corner are flippers made of leather, wooden skis, and a white diving suit, and miniature models of Da Vinci's drawings of a double-hulled ship and a submarine.

Bolts and screws

Da Vinci also thought of mechanisms that would help carry and transport heavy loads. He made some improvements to the Archimedes screw, a coil used to transport water, resulting in technology that is still used today.

Another is a self-propelled car, one of Da Vinci's most famous technical drawings, arguably a foreshadowing of the modern automobile.

Pulleys, ball bearings, cranes, and hammers which visitors can try out and test are made available in the Physics section.

Writings and sketches

Around the walls are replicas of Da Vinci's paintings and anatomical drawings, including the famous Vitruvian Man.

Also showcased are replicas of his codices where you'd see mirror image writing – Da Vinci's personal shorthand where he'd write backwards from right to left to protect his ideas.

Da Vinci was a painter, an engineer, an architect, a mathematician, an anatomist, a writer, and more, all at the same time.

“I think a lot of his ideas were foundations to the things that we find in everyday life today,” Brown said.

“And he was so far advanced in his thinking that I think he really helped to steer human evolution towards where we are today.” — BM/TJD, GMA News

Da Vinci – The Genius will be open from September 1 to November 30 at The Mind Museum.