Leonardo da Vinci and August Wilson
Human beings are enjoying the fruits of several geniuses who lived in the past. The motivation behind the works of the many geniuses was the desire to do well and improve the lives of humankind. Leonardo da Vinci and August Wilson are some of the prominent people whose contribution to human life has remained iconic. While Leonardo da Vinci is remembered for his contribution to science and art, August Wilson dominated the American literary field during his years as a writer. The works of August and Leonardo has stood the test of time to remain impactful in the present generation. The literature by August Wilson and the art and innovations by Leonardo da Vince have continued to improve human life in different dimensions.
Literature and art could, in most times, be treated differently. However, literature can be viewed from a certain perspective as a form of art that does not involve real painting, but the imagery is created through narration. Also, science benefits from art because most innovations are made successful when ideas are transformed into real pictures. Leonardo da Vinci and August Wilson can, therefore, be viewed as individuals who did similar works. The main goal of art and science is similar to that of literature; to reach out to a specific group and thus both Leonardo and August can be said to have been aiming to win the hearts of their followers. The lives of Leonardo da Vinci and August Wilson can be viewed to have been reflective on the works that the individuals engaged in during their time. Da Vinci, for example, was motivated into art and inventions due to the hardships that he went through since his childhood. Wilson, on the other side, grew up in a community were racism was rampant, and thus his works were based on racism and the championing for the freedom of the blacks.
The life of Leonardo da Vinci reflected the works he eventually achieved in his lifetime. The combination of art and science was a great strategy by Da Vinci to win the following of many fans both during and after his era. Leonardo da Vinci lived was born in the late 15thand died in the early 16thcentury. The home country to Da Vinci was the present day Italy. Leonardo da Vinci did not get to enjoy the love of a family since his parents were unmarried and lived separately. Da Vince had about seventeen half-siblings, and thus, his parents would not afford to give him the parental attention that he would need while growing (Garrard, 2018). The definition of Vinci as a genius comes about due to his contribution across several disciplines and the uniqueness of his works. However, Da Vince was somehow secretive since he kept most of his works secretly in his notebooks, and most of the works were only discovered after his death.
The works contained in Da Vinci’s notebooks were procedures and inventions that ran across several fields such as aeronautics and architecture. Leonardo da Vinci has however not escaped the criticism of his contemporaries who have been keen to note that his works are complicated and only a few people can understand what Da Vinci was doing. The fact that Da Vinci lived in an era when technology was yet to be advanced meant that his works could not be stored for many years. However, some of Leonardo da Vinci’s works such as the “The Last Supper” have remained in museums and have been of great importance to the present day artists. The works by Leonardo da Vinci did not, however, disappear on paper since most of his inventions such as the bicycle and the helicopter have remained crucial in the field of science in the present.
Great artists are always not the ones who existed in the absence of competitors. Leonardo da Vinci was not the only existing artist during his time. However, the works of Leonardo da Vinci made him stand uniquely above all the other artists during his lifetime. Art and innovation were the most common activities of artists during da Vinci’s era since Italy was going through the period of renaissance (Ackerman, 2018). Leonardo da Vinci worked along with several contemporaries who included Taccola and Francesco di Giorgio Martini who were also famous artists. The unique work of Leonardo da Vinci earned him the name “The renaissance man” due to his dedication towards the achievement of the final renaissance of Italy.
August Wilson is believed to have been born in 1945 at the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and was given the name August Kittle. The birth of August Wilson is said to have happened after an affair between his black mother and a German man who however abandoned Wilson and her mother immediately after Wilson was born. The challenges facing Wilson started to have his father divorced his mother, and Wilson’s mother had to relocate to a white neighborhood. The experience in the white neighborhood was not the kind that Wilson would have wished for since racism was rampant, and Wilson grew up feeling inferior. One recorded event of extreme racism was one where August Wilson wrote an exemplary essay while in school and his teachers could not believe that a black student would write such an excellent essay. Instead of giving credit to Wilson for his excellent writing, the teachers dismissed Wilson’s essay and said that it was plagiarized. Wilson did not, however, give up on his dreams as he decided to spend most of his school time in the library reading books.
The challenges that August Wilson went through as a child and during his school time shaped his writing career. Most of the works by Wilson are based on racism and have been based on realism. August Wilson was successful in bringing out the suffering that the blacks were going through in the hands of the cruel whites. Most of the characters used in Wilson’s works presented individuals with exemplary potentials in a society that could not allow them to achieve their dreams because of the color of their skins.
The connection between literature and art is significant since the two fields rely on each other on several occasions. First, literature would make little or no sense if the imagery was not part of the narration. Imagery involves the creation of an imaginary picture of events. On the other hand, art involves bringing out the imagination to a real picture through painting. The goals of both an artist and a writer are similar, and followers are the centre of interest. Leonardo da Vinci and August Wilson can be viewed as champions in their different capacities who put the interests of their fans beyond everything. The themes of the works by Leonardo da Vinci and August Wilson revolved around the interests of the general public and hence the huge following on their works.
The interests of the general public vary considerably between generations. August Wilson existed during an era that was hit by a wave of racism and inequality. The society was deeply concerned by the future of a society that was fueling its disunity due to the impacts of racism. Wilson took the chance to talk about racism and its impacts on society, and he had a huge following. Da Vinci, on the other hand, was born during the Renaissance period and had to address the issue of the time in his works. Christianity was slowly becoming an avenue of crisis due to the effects of the Renaissance, and Leonardo da Vinci was keen to incorporated Christianity in his works. The society cannot deny the impacts of Leonardo da Vinci and August Wilson in generations that have come several years after their deaths.
In sum, Leonardo da Vinci and August Wilson are some of the prominent people whose contribution to human life has remained iconic for several years. The lives of Leonardo da Vinci and August Wilson contributed immensely towards the themes that formed several of their works. The contribution of Leonardo da Vinci and August Wilson to the society has been significant, several years after their deaths. The fact that the works by Vinci and Wilson had remained impactful for so long despite being produced in a time when technology was not advanced further shows the extent of the works’ uniqueness.
References
Ackerman, J. S. (2018). Leonardo da Vinci: Art in science. In Science in Culture (pp. 207-224). Routledge.
Garrard, M. D. (2018). Leonardo da Vinci: female portraits, female nature. In The Expanding Discourse (pp. 58-85). Routledge.
Shannon, S. G., & Richards, S. L. (Eds.). (2016, June). Approaches to Teaching the Plays of August Wilson. Modern Language Association.