Leonardo Da Vinci and Science, Biology, and Geology

Near the end of his life he did very little painting, but he found himself curious to science and other things such as biology and geology. He would often forget jobs to work on his mathematics and science. He viewed painting itself like a science and felt an intellectual responsibility to learn more. His range of scientific studies cannot be matched. It included mathematics, optics, mechanics, anatomy and physiology, zoology, botany, geology, and paleontology.

His studies paid off though. "His notes toward a treatise on the flight of birds, for example, inspired him to consider a flying machine for man. The presentation of his findings in both word and image testifies to the fundamentally visual aspect of his imagination.

When it came to biology, Leonardo went beyond the mere experimentation of his contemporaries. In his study of plants he would represent particular ones and not a generalized species. And, he would carefully examine the internal and external qualities of each finding. Also, in his dissecting of humans he wouldn't merely study the anatomy or mechanical structure but he would study in depth the actual functions. He studied the processes of breathing, digestion, and reproduction. He examined the arterial system and the heart. An anatomical treatise he began was to start with the moment of conception, describe the nature of the womb and the development of the fetus, the birth of the baby, and then the growth of the human body. Modern anatomical study actually assumed its first scientific form in the notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci. When it came to geology, Leonardo studied the earth and felt that it was a living organism with a body structure like that of a human. "We may say that the earth has a spirit of growth, and that its flesh is the soil; its bones are the successive strata of the rocks which form the mountains; its cartilage is the tufa stone; its blood the springs of its waters. The lake of blood that lies about the heart is the ocean. Its breathing is by the increase and decrease of the blood in its pulses, and even so in the earth is the ebb and flow of the sea. And the vital heat of the world is the fire which is spread throughout the earth." -Leonardo Da Vinci

Through his studies he developed the theory of the origin of the earth. He examined the change in earth surfaces; The conflict of rock and water and how water was a creative and destructive force. He examined patterns of water flow seen in several drawings. The inventiveness of his imagination is of greater significance than the accuracy of the observing eye. Leonardo compared the movement of water to human hair, again showing his association with the earth to the human body.