Leonardo sent one of his assistants over to invite me to his workshop this afternoon. I was torn about going. It is always exciting, electrifying even, to see what he is working on, but it is also soul-destroying. I mean, he makes everyone else look positively lazy and stupid. Being around Leo can be a real bummer. In the excitement about his next great idea he tends to forget that while he has a hundred ideas, mere mortals are lucky to have one.
Last time I went to see him I returned home and didn’t get out of bed for three days. Depressing. And yet, I feel compelled to go. What will it be? I am so curious! Is it a painting, a sculpture, a war machine, a flying machine, or the design for a bridge? Damn you, Leo.
PS: Not sure where this came from. I was walking somewhere and those words popped into my head.
Good old Ludwig did not say “Music is the electrical soil in which I live, think and invent…”
I find that this excellent TED Talk is related and mentioned it in the Diary before. Who creates works of art? (((Ha! And who is reading these lines on the screen…))) Humans have wondered about this for thousands of years. The Romans maintained that creativity came from Genius and that Genius was thought to be a separate entity that helped and inspired the human artist. It was only relatively recently that we started calling a great artist Genius – earlier they “had a Genius”.
Brilliant TED talk about creativity, genius and where the Flamenco expression Olé! comes from. (((hint – if you know that the roots of Flamenco are Arabic, you might know the answer already)))
I am hoping that this is another sign that we might leave the me-centricity of the past decades behind. (((eventually)))
