.Thoughts & Opinion Adam S. Wilkins

Boo

Leonardo Da Vinci and the nature of‘‘creative genius’’

kReview

Leonardo’s Brain:Understanding Da Vinci’sCreative GeniusLeonard Shlain, Lyon’s Press,Guilford, Connecticut, 2014, ISBN:978-1-4930 0335 8, hardcover, 240pages, price: US$ 25.95

Reviewed byAdam S. Wilkins

Institute of Theoretical Biology,Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin,GermanyE-mail: wilkins316@btinternet.com

DOI 10.1002/bies.201500037

Bioessays 37: 0000–0000,� 2015 WILEY

For most questions of the sort, “Who is

the best (or most) [something] in theworld?,” such as “Who is the mostbrilliant living scientist?” or “Who is themost beautiful woman?,” polls wouldreveal a variety of answers and often asfervently held beliefs. Such variety ofopinion is hardly surprising; choices ofthis sort are highly subjective ones andfor most qualities or abilities, there iseither no metric at all or at best a proxymetric (such as IQ for intelligence)whose adequacy is debatable. (Theworld of sports is different, however,because it does possess good metrics ofperformance.) One might think, there-fore, that the answer to the question,“Who was the greatest creative geniuswho ever lived?”, would be equallycontentious, since there is no way tomeasure creative genius. Yet, in thiscase, it is probable that there would benearly universal agreement: LeonardoDa Vinci would be the overwhelmingchoice. Leonardo had extraordinaryabilities as an artist, inventor, andscientist, and deployed them againand again. Indeed, the amount that heaccomplished—although most of hisprojects were unfinished—is nearly asstaggering as its diversity and quality.There really has never been anyonequite like him, at least anyone who hasleft a historical record. Much of what heaccomplished was made possible by atruly remarkable capacity for visual-ization, but his gifts and accomplish-ments cannot be reduced solely to theoperation of that capacity; his analyticalskills and artistic abilities were aninextricable part of the mix. Althoughthe word “genius” has lost much of itsforce in recent decades, being used todenote anyone with an exceptionaltalent, Leonardo was a “genius” in theolder and far more exclusive sense, anda more versatile one than otherundoubted geniuses, such as Newton,Galileo, Mozart, or Rembrandt.

How does one account for Leonar-do’s utterly remarkable set of gifts? Inan earlier time, the question would have

Periodicals, Inc.

been simply dismissed as impossible toanswer or dealt with by reference toinscrutable divine providence. Today,however, in the Age of Neuroscience, itmight be possible to frame an answer—or, at least, try—in terms of what is nowknown about the workings of thehuman brain. This is the goal of LeonardShlain’s Leonardo’s Brain: Understand-ing Da Vinci’s Creative Genius. Shlain,who died shortly after completing themanuscript—it is clear from the frontmatter that he knew he was racing to getit finished before his death—was himselfboth a neurosurgeon and a best-selling writer, focusing on connectionsbetween the arts and sciences. Giventhose interests, Leonardo da Vinci was anatural—perhaps inevitable—choice forhis next and, as it happened, last book.

Although Shlain’s treatment allowsone to piece together the chronology ofLeonardo’s life, it is not a conventionalbiography. Rather, it is an account ofthe life of the man in terms of hisprojects, interests, and abilities, cover-ing everything from the brilliance ofcomposition in the painting of The LastSupper (and how this opened up awhole new way of seeing and painting)to Leonardo’s inventions (mostly in therealm of new armaments), to hisanatomical studies, to his prescientinsights on the nature of fossils andhis extraordinary map-making abilities.In the course of this accounting, Shlaindescribes abilities of Leonardo thatseem beyond the ability of contempo-rary modern science to explain, such ashis capacity for understanding thelayout of towns that he had nevervisited—what the author refers to as“remote viewing”—and of the geolog-ical history of different regions beforethere was a science of geology. Shlainunabashedly plumps for the existenceof “extrasensory perception” (ESP) andLeonardo’s use of it, after discussingsome of the evidence for its existence,and hints at the idea that Leonardo wascapable of mental time travel, farbeyond the ordinary person’s ability to

www.bioessays-journal.com 1

1

BookReview

Adam S. Wilkins Thoughts & Opinion.

imagine the past. The fact that suchphenomena are currently beyond theken of modern science should, in myopinion, have been acknowledged anddiscussed more explicitly in the text.Yet, the reader is given enough infor-mation to realize that simply dismissingthese ideas is not an adequate response.

So, what neurobiological explana-tion does Leonard Shlain offer forLeonardo’s unparalleled creative gen-ius? The explanation is based on thewell-known fact that the human cere-brum consists of two hemispheres,which are specialized in how theyfunction. In particular, the left hemi-sphere or “left brain” is speciallyadapted to tasks of language andanalytical thinking; hence, while twocritical areas for language development,Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, arepresent in both hemispheres, it is theleft hemisphere’s Broca’s and Wer-nicke’s areas that are most importantfor language. In contrast, the righthemisphere or “right brain” is dedicatedto matters of visualization and feeling(and intuitive insight). To give onespecific example, face recognition isprimarily a right hemisphere capacity.Altogether, in its functioning, the rightbrain is more “feminine” and, presum-ably, the major initial source of creativeinsights. Correspondingly, the left-brainis more “masculine” in its functions(that is, more analytical). Yet, of course,the two hemispheres do not functionwholly independently. They are con-nected by a thick neural cord that linksthe left and right hemispheres, thecorpus callosum. In the author’s view,the most creative insights start withgerminal ideas supplied by the rightbrain to the left, where they areprocessed by the latter’s verbal-analyt-ical-logical machinery. The corpus cal-losum is the bridge that allows this flowof information and, indeed, possiblyplays a major part in its ultimateintegration. Nevertheless, in most peo-ple today, the roles of the two hemi-spheres are not equal; the lefthemisphere is clearly the “dominant”one, as indicated by, amongst otherthings, the predominance of right-handedness. (Each hemisphere controlsbody part movements on the oppositeside, hence right-handers show left-brain control in this behavior.) Shlain

2

believed, and many would probablyagree with him, that a very high degreeof left-brain dominance works againstcreative insight.

These ideas are brought to bear onthe case of Leonardo specifically in oneof the final chapters, titled “Leonardo’sBrain”. Drawing on the known facts thatLeonardo was ambidextrous and,almost certainly, gay, Shlain argues—more implicitly than explicitly—that theultimate source of Leonardo’s creativitylay (probably) in a larger corpus cal-losum, permitting a stronger through-put of creative, intuitive thoughts fromthe right brain into the left brain, wherethey could be molded into brilliant,analytical insights. In making the argu-ment, he draws upon data showing thatboth women and gay men—both groupshaving more “feminine” brains—havelarger anterior commissures in theircorpus callosum than heterosexualmen. Presumably, this increased sizecorrelates with increased trafficking ofneural information from right- to left-brain. In the final chapter, the authorextends these thoughts to speculationsabout the future of humanity, andsuggests that Leonardo, in some sense,points the way toward that future, asone in which the creativity of the rightbrain is unleashedmore effectively. Thiswill not be because of evolved biologicalchange but because human culture,especially via the internet, is beginningto stress right-brain functions—in par-ticular visualization—more and more.If traditional education has alwaysemphasized left-brain analytical, word-based learning, the new ways of learn-ing about the world developing in ourelectronically hyper-linked world areinherently more oriented toward right-brain functions and, thus potentially,a more balanced right-left brainintegration.

This is an interesting set of ideas butone has to ask: is it really sufficient toexplain Leonardo’s exceptional creativ-ity? My opinion is that, like all single-factor explanations of complex phe-nomena, it cannot be the whole story,though it may very well be part of it.There have simply been far more gay,left-handed or ambidextrous individu-als than there have been Leonardos,indicating that there must have beenadditional specific factors in his case.

Bioessays 37: 000

Unless one posits that Leonardo had anexceptionally large corpus callosum,and that extra difference in size madea grossly disproportionate difference inhemispheric integration and creativity,the idea cannot be the entire explan-ation of Leonardo’s gifts. Furthermore,in general, we know that individualexperience shapes both brain develop-ment and abilities. If so, there had tohave been something special in Leo-nardo’s individual development thathelped make him the individual hebecame, even if we do not know whatthose formative influences were. Theremay well also have been some specialgenetic characteristics contributing tohis creative potential, but we will neverknow, since he left no descendants.Furthermore, the corpus callosum theoryhardly seems to touch such matters as“remote viewing” and ESP, which—ifthey were part of Leonardo’s mentalrepertoire—must have foundationsbeyond simply better integration ofright-brain intuitions with left-brainlogic. Finally, there is the fact thatindividuals who have had their corpuscallosum severed are not as dramaticallyaffected in theirbehaviors andabilitiesasthis theory would seem to predict. Therewas, indeed, a vogue for this operation,for about a decade in the mid-20thcentury, as a treatment for epilepsy,and Shlain goes into this matter. How-ever, surprisingly, he stresses how nor-mal these individuals were on thewhole,and does not discuss how their creativeabilities specifically were affected. Tak-ingsuchcaveats seriously,wearethus, inthe end, still leftwith thegreatmysteryofjust how Leonardo came to possess hisunique set of gifts.

Nevertheless, Shlain’s speculationsare insightful and provocative, andprobably launch us in the right direc-tion. Despite some flaws in the book (aperhaps overly hagiographic tone, occa-sional lapses into cliches, some looseends in the explanations), problemsthat might have been eliminated hadthe author had more time, it is afascinating account of one of the mostremarkable humans who ever lived, toldin an engaging and lively style. And,perhaps only an individual as creativeand curious about the world as Shlainhimself evidently was, could have put ittogether so well.

0–0000,� 2015 WILEY Periodicals, Inc.