Leonardo DaVinci: The OG Neurospicy Queer Art Hipster
Leonardo walked so Marrickville art co-op warehouse dwellers could run.
So this past week, I’ve been reading Walter Isaacson’s amazing biography of Leonardo DaVinci. I adore Walter Isaacson’s books. His book on Steve Jobs was fantastic. I don’t even like Steve Jobs. That’s not the point. The point is that this man paints fascinating pictures of fascinating people, love them or hate them.
And his biography of Leonardo? Enthralling. Life-giving. Gorgeous. It comes with this book of his art and sketches on anatomy and warfare and (often-dirty) doodles. And throughout this book, one thing became really clear to me (aside from the fact that Leonardo was amazing and wonderful and I love him even more now):
Leonardo DaVinci was the prototype for the ND queer hipster artist. The first of his kind and the prototype for all to follow, including the NB barista at your favourite fair-trade coffee place who’s only working there to fund their first found object gallery exhibition at their mate’s art co-op.
Intrigued? Allow me to hyper-fixate. Here are five reasons that I believe Leonardo was the OG.
1. He was a neurospicy. Probably.
Okay, look. I am only too aware of the dangers of applying contemporary medical labels to historical figures. However, as an autist, I do have to say that my neurospicy-meter game is typically pretty A1.
So what leads me to believe that our boy Leo was one of us? Well, he was famous for leaving projects and commissions half-finished and for jumping between wildly disparate interests (he was a painter, engineer, architect, and inventor) at the drop of a hat. In fact, he left many more projects incomplete than he ever managed to finish. And he often discarded them to plan fun set-pieces for parties instead, which… Fair.
Do you know any ADHD people? Because… Yeah. That’s them. And I’m not the only one who came to this conclusion apparently. An academic paper by King’s College Professor Marco Catani from the Institute of Psychiatry, Pathology and Neuroscience that appeared in the journal, Brain, put forward his theory that the best explanation for Leonardo’s intense yet wildly scattered interests was very likely ADHD.
Said Professor Catani: “While impossible to make a post-mortem diagnosis for someone who lived 500 years ago, I am confident that ADHD is the most convincing and scientifically plausible hypothesis to explain Leonardo’s difficulty in finishing his works. Historical records show Leonardo spent excessive time planning projects but lacked perseverance. ADHD could explain aspects of Leonardo’s temperament and his strange mercurial genius.”
Plus his notebook is like… the ADHD brain in microcosm. See this entry: ““Describe,” he instructs himself, “what sneezing is, what yawning is, the falling sickness, spasm, paralysis, shivering with cold, sweating, fatigue, hunger, sleep, thirst, lust.”
This is the energy:
2. He was a very out, vaguely twinky gay…
At a time when it was very common to be arrested for sodomy – which Leonardo was – he was pretty out as a gay man. Just shy of his 24th birthday was one of four men arrested for “such wickedness” with the 17-year-old apprentice of a local blacksmith. Whether or not he spent time in prison for this is unknown (it would have been brief if so) but whether or not he was gay is not. He was always fairly outspoken about it and, in his youth, was renowned for his “effeminate beauty” and charismatic charm.
He also loved clothes and enjoyed getting around town dressed as the Renaissance equivalent of a dandy in outlandish, vivid pink, purple and yellow garb while everyone else was rocking beige. He often dressed in shorter-than-usual tunics to show off his legs.
It’s giving hot talented twink, you guys.
He also lived with the same male companion for twenty-eight years and delighted in creating androgynous or gender-ambiguous figures in his work throughout his life, including angels with breasts and penises both.
![A pencil drawing of an "Angel Incarnate" with breasts and an erection A pencil drawing of an "Angel Incarnate" with breasts and an erection](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d9f14a7-0ef2-4977-a4bc-ee625b9787df_742x1042.png)
He even wrote a treatise in his notebooks called, “On the Penis” in which he argued against “covering and concealing something that deserves to be adorned and displayed with ceremony.”
Okay then.
3. … With a hot, chaotic much younger boy-toy
Can you really call yourself an arty gay if you haven’t had a completely ruinous relationship with a super-hot walking red flag? Alas, Leonardo was also the prototype for the chaos-gremlin relationship with his much younger companion nicknamed and commonly referred to by him and other as “Salai” – or “Little Devil.” Cute.
![Various sketches Leonardo DaVinci made of his lover and companion, known as Salai.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fed1d8511-65c0-4242-89bb-9d0b47117116_480x896.png)
![Various sketches Leonardo DaVinci made of his lover and companion, known as Salai.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb03a8013-68ae-4826-b79d-0353a2b72486_524x894.png)
![Various sketches Leonardo DaVinci made of his lover and companion, known as Salai.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F77dff1e3-d651-4dc3-8480-0db289215c91_480x676.png)
![Various sketches Leonardo DaVinci made of his lover and companion, known as Salai.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F84d6486a-2f0f-4712-88a2-d58f0ec5a53d_508x654.png)
Salai wandered into the same workshop where Leonardo was working as a boy and they started a relationship when he was in his teens. He was, by all accounts, beautiful with Leonardo prone to gushing about his attractions in his notebooks and with friends. He was also, described in Leonardo’s notebooks as: “Thief, liar, obstinate, greedy!” Which is fair, because he was famous for stealing wallets, money and anything that wasn’t nailed down – from Leonardo and others.
Nevertheless, Leonardo moved Salai in with him (for 25 years!) and loved dressing him up in fancy clothes, drawing and painting his likeness frequently – including one particularly funny image of a butt being chased by dicks with legs and titled: “Salai’s Bum.”
Admit it. You’ve met this couple at an experimental-music warehouse party haven’t you?
4. He was also a trendsetting vegetarian
Considering that being vegetarian was about as rare in Leonardo’s time as being a vegan was in like… 1940s Brazil, I think we can consider him a trendsetter here. He was noted for his love of animals throughout his life and adopted a vegetarian lifestyle out of his belief that inflicting pain of any kind was abhorrent and should be avoided at all costs – extremely unusual views for the time period.
P.S. these views are a bit at odds with his many designs for gruesome weapons that he attempted (and failed) to sell to military bigwigs, one of which is a chariot with what look like Dyson blender blades attached to the front, designed to slice and dice your opposition. I digress.
5. And he loved bringing the drama
Leonardo was widely beloved by his contemporaries during his lifetime. Early biographers praised his kindness, generosity and charisma.
Renaissance biographer Giorgio Vasari got a bit more gushy about it:
In the normal course of events many men and women are born with various remarkable qualities and talents; but occasionally, in a way that transcends nature, a single person is marvellously endowed by heaven with beauty, grace and talent in such abundance that he leaves other men far behind... Everyone acknowledged that this was true of Leonardo da Vinci, an artist of outstanding physical beauty who displayed infinite grace in everything he did and who cultivated his genius so brilliantly that all problems he studied were solved with ease.
He sounds like a bit of a Chad, let’s face it. And fellow artist (and fellow gay) Michelangelo? He fucking HATED it.
Leonardo and Michelangelo had long-term and hilarious beef, almost entirely instigated by Michelangelo who, it seems, was a wee bit jealous of our boy and would snark about him whenever and wherever he could. While some of it was professional competitiveness, there was also a more personal element. Whereas Leonardo was handsome and popular, Michelangelo was often described by contemporaries and historians alike as both ugly and smelly and… Look, we can see how that would rankle.
Michelangelo was also gay, but unlike Leonardo, he was absolutely NOT cool about it. He was (also unlike Leonardo) extremely religious and, as often happens with gays raised in that environment, extremely self-loathing. It’s believed he was celibate his entire life. But his sexual orientation bled out into his work in occasionally hilarious ways like uh… This scene:
Which is allegedly a battle but looks more like the first five minutes of a gay orgy. Leonardo also mocked this piece mercilessly – which wasn’t very kind but was definitely amusing.
After all – what’s an A-Gay on top without a rival, amirite?
In conclusion, if you want to know what Leonardo DaVinci was like, go to the most hipster area of your city and find the gayest, artsiest, chillest MFs you can unearth – Leo walked so these babies could run.
Bits and Bobs
Aside from deciding that Leonardo DaVinci is now probably one of my favourite historical figures of all time, this week I’ve been:
Reading: Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in 15 Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It’s a short nonfiction piece in the form of a letter to the author’s friend who has asked Adichie for advice on raising her daughter as a feminist. Excellent reading here.
Watching: Season 2 of The Bear continues to tug at my heartstrings and make me constantly hungry.
Listening to: In an Americana phase at the moment, mostly consisting of listening to Jason Isbell’s entire Southeastern album again and again.
That’s all for this week, friends. Until next time!