How the world moved from Leonardo da Vinci to Grand Theft Auto
Background
Vespa:
The Faggio in GTA Vice City, because of its open design and
flexibility, is the best vehicle. I didn’t ever encounter a Faggio in
GTA San Andreas and GTA IV. It is the vehicle that’s accused as very
slow. But there’s the beauty in that vehicle. The very pain, the
obstacle this vehicle creates can be constructively used. Its fun to
perform stunts on this vehicle. Plus there are other advantages(if
you’re lucky) that can be derived from the very vehicle other people
loath. Stop accusing my dear Faggio.
Accusations
The point is no one lives a perfect life. One antidote is whenever someone accuses, question the reputation of accuser himself.
I
perceive pain as something that can be used to clear the path.
Suffering doesn’t mean painful. It just means using pain to find your
way.
Reading this wherever you might be, please know you can use your pains to point out what exactly to excise from your life.
Obstacle is the way
Assumptions
Assumption #1: Software and hardware are not the same
Defining Software as Wikipedia users would:
Computer software, or simply software, is a part of a computer system that consists of data or computer instructions, in contrast to the physical hardware from which the system is built. — Wikipedia
About Hardware
Computer hardware are the physical parts or components of a computer, such as the central processing unit, monitor, keyboard, computer data storage, graphic card, sound card and motherboard. By contrast, software is instructions that can be stored and ran by hardware. — Wikipedia
For the sake of 21st Century, software and hardware go hand-in-hand. Talk to non-techies and you’ll know why.
It’s a useless debate whether someone needs to focus on Hardware or software as his major.
I
don’t think that’s true nor any other fellow would agree with
no-brainer arguments about software vs. hardware(Some of you will ask
What if you’re weaker in Mathematics than computer science? well the
fact is computer uses binary and binary is a close cousin of
mathematics).
[1]Revisiting Leonardo Do Vinci
If
Leonardo Da Vinci was not glorified as an artist, what would he be
known for? Science and Technology. I think about the life of Ben
Franklin, as the Americans do, he learnt multiple trades simultaneously.
His dad took great care when raising third last of the Franklin family.
Who Was Leonardo da Vinci?
Leonardo
da Vinci (April 15, 1452 to May 2, 1519) was a painter, sculptor,
architect, inventor, military engineer and draftsman — the epitome of a
“Renaissance man.” With a curious mind and keen intellect, da Vinci
studied the laws of science and nature, which greatly informed his work.
His ideas and body of work have influenced countless artists and made
da Vinci a leading light of the Italian Renaissance.
Leonardo da Vinci’s Paintings and Artwork
Although
da Vinci is known for his artistic abilities, fewer than two-dozen
paintings attributed to him exist. One reason is that his interests were
so varied that he wasn’t a prolific painter. Leonardo da Vinci’s most
famous works include the “Vitruvian Man,” “The Last Supper” and the “Mona Lisa.”
‘Vitruvian Man’
Art
and science intersected perfectly in da Vinci’s sketch of “Vitruvian
Man,” drawn in 1490, which depicted a male figure in two superimposed
positions with his arms and legs apart inside both a square and a
circle. The sketch represents Leonardo’s study of proportion as well as
his desire to relate man to nature.
‘The Last Supper’
Around 1495, Ludovico Sforza, then the Duke of Milan, commissioned da Vinci to paint
“The Last Supper” on the back wall of the dining hall inside the
monastery of Milan’s Santa Maria delle Grazie. The masterpiece, which
took approximately three years to complete, captures the drama of the
moment when Jesus informs the Twelve Apostles gathered for Passover
dinner that one of them would soon betray him. The range of facial
expressions and the body language of the figures around the table bring the masterful composition to life.
The decision by da Vinci to paint
with tempera and oil on dried plaster instead of painting a fresco on
fresh plaster led to the quick deterioration and flaking of “The Last
Supper.” Although an improper restoration caused further damage to the
mural, it has now been stabilized using modern conservation techniques.
‘Mona Lisa’
Leonardo
Da Vinci, in 1503, started working on what would become his most well
known painting — and arguably the most famous painting in the
world — the “Mona Lisa.” The privately commissioned work is
characterized by the enigmatic smile of the woman in the half-portrait,
which derives from da Vinci’s sfumato technique.
Adding
to the allure of the “Mona Lisa” is the mystery surrounding the
identity of the subject. Princess Isabella of Naples, an unnamed
courtesan and da Vinci’s own mother have all been put forth as potential
sitters for the masterpiece. It has even been speculated that the
subject wasn’t a female at all but da Vinci’s longtime apprentice Salai
dressed in women’s clothing. Based on accounts from an early biographer,
however, the “Mona Lisa” is a picture of Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of
a wealthy Florentine silk merchant. The painting’s original Italian
name — “La Gioconda” — supports the theory, but it’s far from certain.
Some art historians believe the merchant commissioned the portrait to
celebrate the pending birth of the couple’s next child, which means the
subject could have been pregnant at the time of the painting.
If
the Giocondo family did indeed commission the painting, they never
received it. For da Vinci, the “Mona Lisa” was forever a work in
progress, as it was his attempt at perfection, and he never parted with
the painting. Today, the “Mona Lisa” hangs in the Louvre Museum in
Paris, France, secured behind bulletproof glass and regarded as a
priceless national treasure seen by millions of visitors each year.
‘Battle of Anghiari’
In
1503, da Vinci also started work on the “Battle of Anghiari,” a mural
commissioned for the council hall in the Palazzo Vecchio that was to be
twice as large as “The Last Supper.” He abandoned the project after two
years when the mural began to deteriorate before he had a chance to
finish it.
Sculptures
Ludovico
Sforza also tasked da Vinci with sculpting a 16-foot-tall bronze
equestrian statue of his father and founder of the family dynasty,
Francesco Sforza. With the help of apprentices and students in his
workshop, da Vinci worked on the project on and off for more than a
dozen years. Leonardo sculpted a life-size clay model of the statue, but
the project was put on hold when war with France required bronze to be
used for casting cannons, not sculptures. After French forces overran
Milan in 1499 — and shot the clay model to pieces — da Vinci fled the
city along with the duke and the Sforza family.
Ironically,
Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, who led the French forces that conquered
Ludovico in 1499, followed in his foe’s footsteps and commissioned da
Vinci to sculpt a grand equestrian statue, one that could be mounted on
his tomb. After years of work and numerous sketches by da Vinci,
Trivulzio decided to scale back the size of the statue, which was
ultimately never finished.
Painting Techniques
Leonardo da Vinci is well known for his pioneering use of two painting techniques:
Chiaroscuro: a stark contrast between darkness and light that gave a three-dimensionality to da Vinci’s figures.
Sfumato: a technique in which subtle gradations, rather than strict borders, infuse paintings with a softer, smoky aura.
His painting “Virgin of the Rocks,” begun in 1483, is a classic example of both of these techniques.
Inventions: The Flying Machine
A
man ahead of his time, da Vinci appeared to prophesy the future with
his sketches of machines resembling a bicycle and a helicopter. Perhaps
his most well-known “invention” is a “flying machine,” which is based on
the physiology of a bat.
When and Where Was da Vinci Born?
Leonardo
da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, in a farmhouse nestled amid the
undulating hills of Tuscany outside the village of Anchiano, in
present-day Italy.
Da Vinci the Engineer
In
1482, Florentine ruler Lorenzo de’ Medici commissioned da Vinci to
create a silver lyre and bring it as a peace gesture to Ludovico Sforza.
After doing so, da Vinci lobbied Ludovico for a job and sent the future
Duke of Milan a letter that barely mentioned his considerable talents
as an artist and instead touted his more marketable skills as a military
engineer. Using his
inventive mind, da Vinci sketched war machines such as a war chariot
with scythe blades mounted on the sides, an armored tank propelled by
two men cranking a shaft and even an enormous crossbow that required a
small army of men to operate. The letter worked, and Ludovico
brought da Vinci to Milan for a tenure that would last 17 years. During
his time in Milan, Leonardo was commissioned to work on numerous
artistic projects as well, including “The Last Supper.”
Da Vinci’s Study of Anatomy and Science
Leonardo
da Vinci thought sight was humankind’s most important sense and eyes
the most important organ, and he stressed the importance of saper
vedere, or “knowing how to see.” He believed in the accumulation of
direct knowledge and facts through observation.
“A
good painter has two chief objects to paint — man and the intention of
his soul,” da Vinci wrote. “The former is easy, the latter hard, for it
must be expressed by gestures and the movement of the limbs.”
To
more accurately depict those gestures and movements, da Vinci began to
study anatomy seriously and dissect human and animal bodies during the
1480s. His drawings of a fetus in utero, the heart and vascular system,
sex organs and other bone and muscular structures are some of the first
on human record.
In
addition to his anatomical investigations, da Vinci studied botany,
geology, zoology, hydraulics, aeronautics and physics. He sketched his
observations on loose sheets of papers and pads that he tucked inside
his belt. He placed the papers in notebooks and arranged them around
four broad themes — painting, architecture, mechanics and human anatomy.
He filled dozens of notebooks with finely drawn illustrations and
scientific observations. His ideas were mainly theoretical explanations,
laid out in exacting detail, but they were rarely experimental.
Rationalization
can extend to more than Hardware vs. software debate. When credible
sources like Wikipedia are ambiguous about Sofware-Hardware contrast,
what to expect from the world.
(In
psychology, people who face cognitive dissonance rationalize and change
their perceptions about objects to match their dissonance).
Why
start with a Faggio? because video games do a good job of simulating
the very luxuries I couldn’t have in life — Obstacle turned into gold.
Sources
[1] https://www.biography.com/people/leonardo-da-vinci-40396
The Book: Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson.
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