SOURCE: “Goethe and Leonardo: A Comparative Study,” in Theoria, Vol. XXXIV, May 1970, pp. 21-47.

In the following essay, van Maelsaeke highlights similarities between the philosophical thought of Leonardo and that of German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He notes, for example, that in terms of natural philosophy, both men advocated the use of the experimental method, and both viewed nature as a force with both good and evil qualities.

Goethe's providential encounter with Leonardo's art was one of the leading experiences of his human and artistic rejuvenation in Italy (1786-88). From his reading of Leonardo's Trattato della Pittura in Rome (1788) Goethe may intuitively have inferred the similarity of both Leonardo's and his own views of the universe to those of Empedocles in whose cosmology the elements constantly interact under the influence of Love and Hate as respectively creative and destructive powers:

In turn they get the upper hand...