by Waqas Ahmed
On retiring from professional sports, he gave up his passion for painting and studied zoology, becoming a curator in the zoological department of the Bergen Museum. He researched and published papers on the central nervous system of lower marine creatures and would later become professor of zoology at the Royal Frederick University. Nansen’s scientific research then switched from zoology to oceanography. He was commissioned by the Royal Geographical Society to produce a two-volume history of the exploration of the northern regions up to the beginning of the sixteenth century, which was published in 1911 as Nord i Tåkeheimen (In Northern Mists). He was an explorer who went on two Arctic expeditions: the first when he was 27 years old, when he led the first ski crossing of Greenland’s inland ice; and then five years later when he sailed over the Polar Sea with the polar ship Fram (reaching a record northern latitude of 86°14’). As a diplomat, he played an important role in the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905, and was later appointed Norway’s first Ambassador in London, where he successfully negotiated Norway’s independent status.
Scientists
According to the extensive study on human accomplishment by Charles Murray, 15 of the 20 most influential scientists in history were in fact polymaths. This was reinforced by psychologist Robert Root-Bernstein’s study on Nobel prize-winning scientists, which found a startling number of them to be polymathic. And this is not even considering the history of science outside of the modern West.
According to Sinologist Fredrick Mote, Shen Kuo was ‘perhaps the most interesting character in all of Chinese scientific history.’ He best embodied the intellectual and cultural versatility of the Sung Shih, making contributions to numerous sciences including mathematics, astronomy, anatomy, geology, economics and optics, as well as in civil and mechanical engineering. As an engineer and inventor, he developed an armillary sphere, a water clock, and a bronze gnomon (a pointer whose shadow gives the time of midday). He was in fact the first to discover that the compass does not point directly to the north, but in fact to the magnetic north pole. As a mathematician, he considered the problem of the ‘Go’ board which has 19×19 lines, giving 361 intersections. He was made Director of the Astronomy Bureau, and was put in charge of developing a new calendar for the new emperor as well as making observations on planetary motion. He was then appointed Finance Commissioner at the Imperial Academy and his writings on the theory of supply and demand, methods of forecasting prices, the currency supply, price controls and market intervention cemented his position as one of the most prominent economists of his time.
But he was also a celebrated statesman and cultural icon who won a reputation as a great poet, painter and musician. While much of Shen’s contributions to science and the arts were made as a practitioner, he would eventually synthesise all of his knowledge in an encyclopaedic treatise known as Brush Talks (Dream Pool Essays), which incorporated elements of mathematics, music, art criticism, astronomy, calendars, cartography, geology, optics and medicine. A polymathic masterpiece, it was known as one of the most important intellectual works of Sung China.
Joseph Needham, the principal Western chronicler of Chinese science, said that the Chinese focused on a ‘holistic scientific worldview and on the harmonious, hierarchical relationships of entities,’ which warranted an understanding of multiple natural phenomena in a simultaneous, interconnected fashion. The Ming period of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century China was famous for its encyclopaedic scholarship relating to the natural sciences. Bureaucrat Li Shizhen was a pioneer in traditional Chinese medicine, herbology and acupuncture, but he also demonstrated a tremendous scientific erudition through his Bencao Gangmu, which includes 1,892 entries on subjects as varied as botany, zoology, mineralogy and metallurgy. Song Yingxing, also of Ming China, produced one of the first ever comprehensive science encyclopaedias, the Tiangong Kaiwu. Although China had a long history of producing encyclopaedias, the Tiangong Kaiwu is unique in that it seems to have no references, and instead is claimed to be written by Yingxing entirely from his own knowledge and experiences. This makes Yingxing more than a mere encyclopaedist and an important contributor to many sciences.
The founding of Islam initially saw the emergence of many theologian-scientists, who saw it as equally important to understand creation and its creator. These scholars spurned scientific boundaries when making their enquiries, and the likes of Ja‘far Al-Sadiq, Ja̅bir ibn Hayya̅n, Al-Khwarizmi, Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Qurrah and Al Jahiz in the first two centuries of Islam became interdisciplinary scholars of mathematics, astronomy, anatomy and other facets of scienta (or ‘ilm). The trend towards scientific polymathy among Muslims followed. It was epitomised two centuries later in the same region by Ibn al-Haytham, who became one of the first scientists to establish and use a new system of scientific enquiry — the scientific method — to investigate various branches of science including physics, biology, astronomy and mathematics. Al-Haytham is renowned for his work on optics and visual perception, but also made significant contributions to the fields of physics, anatomy, astronomy, engineering, mathematics, medicine, ophthalmology and psychology. A couple of centuries later Ottoman scholar Takiyuddin wrote on all aspects of science and engineering, including astronomy, physics, medicine, optics, mathematics and mechanical engineering (such as clock-making). He wrote more than 90 books on these subjects. Though few of these have survived, his ideas certainly brought forth a new era in theoretical and experimental research in a variety of scientific disciplines.
Polymathy among scientists was common in England from the Renaissance onward. Isaac Newton actually wrote more on occult theology than he did on science. Still, his achievements and contributions to science are as diverse and influential as any scientist in recorded history. As a mathematician he developed differential and integral calculus (sharing the credit with Leibniz), demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, formulated a method for approximating the roots of a function and contributed to the study of power series. He practically invented (at least in the Western understanding of it) the discipline of physics through his Principles of Natural Philosophy (usually called the Principia), in which he described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion and removed the last doubts about heliocentrism. He built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound. Newton’s contemporary Robert Hooke, dubbed by historian Allan Chapman as ‘England’s Leonardo’ also contributed to many scientific disciplines including astronomy and gravitation, aerodynamics, mechanical engineering, combustion, psychology and microscopy. He used his varied expertise in the sciences to support his artistic talent as an architect while designing important buildings in London following the fire of 1666.
Notwithstanding the growing predominance of specialisation in academia during the Enlightenment, a few intellectuals went against the grain. Thomas Young, described by his biographer as ‘the last man to know everything,’ set up his own medical practice, published important works on physiology, optics and physics, and developed the wave theory of light as professor of physics. Perhaps more interestingly, he was a polyglot who studied the phonetics of over 400 languages and famously deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone (although this was fully completed later by Champollion). He also created a method of tuning musical instruments, known today as the Young Temperament.
The world of scientific research was dominated by men until the nineteenth century, when Mary Somerville was asked to translate some of the complicated scientific works for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge — an organisation geared towards making scientific knowledge more accessible to the rapidly expanding reading public. Having popularised many fields of science with her appealing writing style, she began to produce a wide variety of scientific works of her own, including On the Connexion of
the Physical Sciences, Physical Geography and Molecular and Microscopic Science. She also advanced the field of mathematics, coining the term ‘variables’ used in algebra. She became one of the first women to be admitted to the Royal Astronomical Society and was dubbed the ‘Queen of nineteenth-century science’ by London’s Morning Post on her death.
The ‘father of all thought in natural history’ during the Enlightenment was undisputedly Comte de Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc, author of the era’s greatest scientific encyclopaedia, Histoire Naturelle, a monumental 44-volume work that united various branches of nature. In other works, he introduced differential and integral calculus into probability theory, studied the properties of timber, explored the origins of the solar system and became a major proponent of monogenism. Swedish Enlightenment scientist Carl Linnaeus was known as an all-round naturalist for his relentless investigations into human anatomy, botany, zoology and geology at a time of increasing specialisation in the sciences. He would become one of the pioneers of human, plant, animal and mineral classification. Other examples of scientific polymaths during the Enlightenment include German Herman von Helmholtz, an outstanding physician, physicist and psychologist, who ultimately became one of the twentieth century’s leading philosophers of science.
‘Serial inventors’ design and create a variety of devices that demonstrate their competence, or brilliance, in more than one scientific discipline. A classic (and perhaps the earliest) example is the Ancient Greek inventor Archimedes, whose talent as an astronomer, physicist, mathematician and engineer allowed him to make some of the most important inventions in the history of science. He used the method of exhaustion to calculate the area under the arc of a parabola with the summation of an infinite series, and gave a remarkably accurate approximation of pi. He also defined the spiral bearing his name, formulae for the volumes of surfaces of revolution and an ingenious system for expressing very large numbers. He proved that the sphere has two thirds of the volume and surface area of the cylinder (including the bases of the latter), and regarded this as the greatest of his mathematical achievements. Among his advances in physics are the foundations of hydrostatics, statics and an explanation of the principle of the lever. He is credited with designing innovative machines, including siege engines and the screw pump that bears his name.
Ninth-century genius Abbas ibn Firnas was a practising physician who embarked on an extraordinarily diverse career as an inventor in the fields of engineering, physics, biology, astronomy and chemistry. He designed a water clock called Al-Maqata, devised a means of manufacturing colourless glass, invented various glass planispheres, made corrective lenses or ‘reading stones,’ developed a chain of rings that could be used to simulate the motions of the planets and stars, produced a type of metronome and developed a process for cutting rock crystal that allowed Spain to cease exporting quartz to Egypt to be cut. His foremost (while lesser known to the West) invention, however, was a set of specially designed wings for an experiment in flight. According to a variety of sources — some more reliable than others — he succeeded in gliding using the wings, but misjudged the landing due to a lack of tail mechanism, injuring his back. It is known to be the earliest recorded attempt at human flight.
Artists
Ziryab almost single-handedly revolutionised Andalusian aesthetic culture in the ninth century. As a young musician, his talents won him a prestigious invitation from the caliph of Al-Andalus where he opened schools to train singers and musicians, and introduced musical instruments — notably the Persian lute, which became the Spanish guitar — as well as songs, tunes and dances of Persia and Mesopotamia that later, mixed with Gypsy influence, evolved into the famed Spanish flamenco. As a musical theorist and composer, he rearranged the metrical and rhythmical parameters of traditional composition and created new ways of expression such as the muwashshah, zajal and nawbah.
It was at the court of Abdar-Rahman II in Cordoba that Ziryab began to flourish as a fashion icon, a trendsetter and gastronome. He became the model courtier, and began to train people in style and manners at court — centuries before Baldesare Castiglione wrote his Book of the Courtier during the Italian Renaissance in the sixteenth century. He introduced new hairstyles, culinary recipes, dress sense, hygiene care, social manner and dietary habit, the three-course meal, the tablecloth, fine dining, seasonal fashion, crystal glassware and games such as chess and polo. Ziryab’s creative talents spanned multiple aspects of court culture.
Prior to the early modern period ‘the arts’ referred to the entire spectrum of human learning. In Europe they included the seven Liberal Arts (grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy), which were taught in the earliest universities, and the many Mechanical Arts (such as weaving, masonry, soldiery, hunting, commerce and cooking), which were taught in the guilds. Since the Renaissance in Europe, but earlier elsewhere around the world, the arts have been redefined to focus on those ‘works of creative expression, produced with skill and imagination, which have outstanding aesthetic value.’ Today the arts encompass visual art (painting, sculpture, photography), performing art (music, cinema, theatre) and literary art (poetry, novels and plays). Some creative polymaths demonstrate an exceptional versatility within these various art forms. They are the ones we refer to when we speak of the artist’s soul.
This became a defining feature of the Italian Renaissance, giving birth to Uomo Universale or ‘Renaissance Men’ such as Michelangelo, one of the most celebrated painters, poets, sculptors and architects of his time. As a sculptor, he produced many masterpieces including the Pietà and David, and as a painter created two of the most influential works in fresco in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling and The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. As an architect, Michelangelo pioneered the Mannerist style at the Laurentian Library and became the architect of St Peter’s Basilica, transforming the plan and redesigning its western end. As a poet, Michelangelo wrote a series of acclaimed epigrams and sonnets, each inspired by and dedicated to those he loved and longed for at different stages in his life.
Like Ziryab and Michelangelo, the greatest artists define and initiate cultural movements. They do this by impacting not just one art form but the milieu. Mário de Andrade was the pioneer of modernism in Brazilian art, music and literature and was a central figure in the avant-garde movement in 1930s São Paulo. His poetry Paulicéia Desvairada and novel Macumnaima pretty much kick-started modernism in Brazil and included indigenous Brazilian folk themes. His photographs were published in his travel journal ‘The Apprentice Tourist’ and gained much attention from the modernist movement. Andrade was also a prominent art critic and historian and one of the first scholars of music in the country to focus on ethnomusicology. Through his contribution to visual, literary and performing arts, Andrade is seen as a complete artist; one that initiated and embodied a cultural movement.
The same can be said for an artistic genius from India. Labelled by his biographer Andrew Robinson as the ‘myriad-minded man’ Rabindranath Tagore was a poet, composer, painter, novelist and playwright. But perhaps more importantly, he was a many-sided intellectual and political activist whose significance in propagating a nationalist, anti-imperialist culture is still felt today. After a brief stint in London studying law, Tagore returned to India to write poetry and short stories in seclusion at his family estate. Over this ‘Sadhana’ period (1891–1895) he wrote more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, itself a group of 84 stories. He also wrote eight novels and four novellas and many acclaimed plays such as Dak Ghar (Post Office), Chandalika (Untouchable Girl), and Raktakaravi (Red Oleanders). He translated much of his work into English free verse and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, becoming the first Asian Nobel laureate.
His poetry had a profound impact on many internationally renowned composers, who have set many of his poems to music. Tagore himself composed some 2,230 songs, which have
collectively become an integral part of Bengali culture. He also became the only composer in history to write and compose the scores for the national anthems for two separate countries: Jana Gana Mana for India in 1911 and Amar Shonar Bangla for Bangladesh (although composed earlier, this would later be used by Bangladesh on independence in 1971). Moreover, many of his poems and other writings have been used as lyrics and collectively form a new genre of music branded ‘Rabindra Sangeet.’
Aged 60, Tagore took up drawing and painting. His eclectic art, ranging from oil and chalk pastels to ink on paper, captured the interest of art critics worldwide, allowing him to hold many successful exhibitions in Europe. In addition to being an artistic polymath, Tagore was also a historian of India, a spiritualist who wrote and delivered lectures on the nature of God and a linguist who wrote on Bengali grammar. Tagore’s main philosophical work, Sadhana: Realisation of the Self, sought to reconnect man with nature.
Cultures themselves demand an artist to be an exceptionally versatile one. For instance, the Griot of West Africa — originating from the flourishing Malian Empire of the fifteenth century — was usually a musician, poet, singer, dancer, storyteller and artist as well as a historian. Even today, for those African artists who retain an indigenous approach to creativity, a synthesis of multiple art forms is the natural course of action. South African artist Pitika Ntuli expressed this yearning in his book Storms of the Heart:
In my country, and in Swaziland, my country of adoption, the fusion of art forms, to be a poet, painter, sculptor, musician, actor, all in one, can be just a matter of course. Ceremonies, rituals, fuse all art forms, to allow for . . . cross-fertilization. . . . Arriving in Britain I found myself living, or half-living, in different compartments simultaneously. Each compartment seemed hermetically sealed. Each so stiflingly private.
