If you have scissors at home, congratulations: You own a Leonardo da Vinci. Mention the name and most think Mona Lisa or Last Supper. But the Renaissance man’s talents extended well beyond canvas: to architecture, music, mathematics, science, and engineering. He invented myriad machines for entertaining party guests, transportation, saving labor, measuring, and warfare.
“Painting bored him,” says Godfrey Harris, who created The Da Vinci Experience, a traveling exhibition. But, “as an illegitimate child, he had no opportunity to enter society. He could not go to the university; he could not have a profession. So his father thought he could have a chance in life if he developed a craft. And the craft was painting, because royalty needed religious art.”
Da Vinci was way ahead of his time — centuries ahead. Leonardo da Vinci: Man, Inventor, Genius — a comprehensive exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science — examines his staggering contributions to science and engineering, including an underwater breathing device (predicting modern scuba gear), a protective tank for soldiers, the air screw (the predecessor of the helicopter), and the gearshift (similar to what’s in today’s cars).
The scientific community still learns from da Vinci. In 2000, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the da Vinci Surgical System, a “robot” that allows surgeons to get closer to a surgical site than human vision allows. In 2001, a bridge designed by da Vinci in 1502 was built in Norway. And in 2006, a British heart surgeon developed a better way to repair mitral valves after studying one of da Vinci’s anatomical drawings.
With more than 60 models based on da Vinci’s designs, his range of achievements represented in Man, Inventor, Genius still seems astonishing some 500 years after his death. Hands-on interaction throughout the exhibition helps put you in touch with your inner genius.
Leonardo da Vinci: Man, Inventor, Genius
Through Sept. 1, 2008
Houston Museum of Natural Science
One Hermann Circle Drive
(713) 639-4629.
