Why does it seem the best minds of the renaissance were more generally skilled than the best modern minds?

by dontlistenheshigh

You hear about Renaissance men like Da Vinci and Descartes being milestone contributors to the feilds of Art, Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Philosophy. I don't know of more contemporary equivalents. I'm not aware of Georgia O'Keeffe 's contributions to the field of mathematics or Einstein's painting abilities.

lcnielsen

To clarify, are you asking for examples of people who made significant contributions to multiple fields of science, or who were both scientists and artists?

Any science today is infinitely more complicated and difficult than in Leonardo's time. You hardly need high school level calculus today to know all the math there was to know 400 years ago. Even less physics - Newton wasn't even around yet! Today it typically takes 5-6 college years to even get started with serious research in physics. And that will be in some super-narrow subspecialty of a subfield. For someone to dedicate the time and have the luck to make a news-worthy breakthrough in physics, and also happen to have dedicated countless hours to being a world-level artist... it's astronomically unlikely. There just aren't enough hours in a day.