The Jay-Blog

Another lefty

Like Michelangelo and me, Leonardo da Vinci was left-handed. In fact, Leonardo is left-handedness's poster child. Michelangelo and I are known only for our work, not the hand we favor for creating it. The catalog of Met's new exhibit, Leonardo, Master Draftsman, highlights his extreme leftness.

In his day, Leonardo was known as a mancino ("lefty" and "southpaw" are modern-day equivalents), with all the social, cultural, and psychological connotations—not all positive—that the word implied in the Renaissance and does even into our own time. He may be the most universally recognized left-handed artist of all time.



Scientific research—old and new—seems to suggest that for "lefties" mirror writing may come more easily with practice than conventional left-to-right script, as the hand moves with less effort and, staying ahead of the writing, does not smear the ink. Moreover, the fluent, expository manner of Leonardo's writings, their elegantly structured reasoning, their copious quantity, and the attractive calligraphic styles of some of his early notes in particular scarcely indicate a person suffering from dyslexia, as is often asserted concerning Leonardo in popular journalistic writings.

Leonardo blogged, I mean wrote his journals, for himself. It's tough to read backward writing without a mirror (or a lot of practice). When his maps included lettering, he wrote normal, left-to-right characters. His letters use conventional characters, too, but they may have been written by scribes.

In his entire oeuvre, only the minuscule number of drawings and notes that were intended to be read by another—whether patron, collaborator, or friend—seem to be written in conventional left-to-right script.

Codex Leichester


and in the mirror.

Left is right

Being a lefty is part of my essence. The left hand's connected to the right brain, and the right brain is where I live.

Uta's German parents were horrified to discover she was marrying a left-hander. When our son was born, they immediately wanted to know which hand he favored. It was as if my side of the family's genes were propogating hemophilia or congenital schizophrenia.

Me, I don't see it as a handicap to be in the company of such lefties as Ramses II, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Charlemagne, Queen Victoria, Fidel Castro, Henry Ford, David Rockefeller, Dave Berry, Edward R. Murrow, Lenny Bruce, Clarence Darrow, Marshall McLuhan, Mark Twain, H.G. Wells, Kurt Cobain, The Everly Brothers (both), Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney, Cole Porter, Johnny ROtten, Paul Simon, Dürer, Escher, Klee, Raphael, Carol Burnett, Sid Caesar, Tom Cruise (and Nicole Kidman), George Burns, Goldie Hawn, Jim Henson (and Kermit the Frog), Diane Keaton, Cloris Leachman, Hal Linden, Shirley MaxLaine, Steve McQueen, Howie Mandel, Marcel Marceau, Harpo Marx, Marilyn Monroe, Kim Novak, Jerry Seinfeld, Dick Smothers, Rod Steiger, Emma Thompson, Oprah, Pelé, Phil Esposito, James "Gentleman Jim" Corbett, Gayle Sayers, Kenny Stabler, Larry Bird, Bill Russell, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova, Babe Ruth, Casey Stengel, Darryl Strawberry, Greta Garbo, Cary Grant, Peter Graves, Tippi Hedren, Robert DeNiro, Peter Fonda, and W.C. Fields.

Posted by Jay Cross at February 10, 2003 08:59 AM | TrackBack