Sfumato and The Fundamental Flaw of Technology
Why your phone makes you unhappy (as exposed by DaVinci himself)
One of history’s most famous rivalries was that between artists Leonardo DaVinci and Michaelangelo.
A significant difference between them was that Leonardo, despite his eclectic tastes and interests, was primarily a painter while Michaelangelo was primarily a sculptor (fun fact: he almost turned down the Sistine Chapel gig because he did not identify as a painter).
Because Michaelangelo was used to cutting distinct shapes from rock, his style of painting was hard with clear lines and sharp details:
Leonardo, on the other hand, is famous for a technique called Sfumato. It’s a way of subtly mixing colors, shades, and nuances without any lines or borders to produce smooth, almost “smoky” transitions (Sfumato means “smoke”).
This technique is one reason his paintings evoke so much emotion in the viewer.
Compared even to Michaelangelo’s work, they are simply a more realistic representation.
They feel more alive.
You could say that Michaelangelo tried to capture reality with a hard, scientific representation while Leonardo was concerned with melding his paintings with actual physical reality itself.
The Fundamental Flaw of Technology
There is a reason Leonardo operated at such depth. He arrived at his style via his deep studies of nature, which overall is what made him so unique. Over a lifetime of such observation, he uncovered a deep truth: reality is not black or white.
There are no hard edges.
Everything we perceive is gradual and infinite at the same time.
If you look at your hand, for example, there is an outer edge. But where exactly is that edge? Diving down into the details of micrometers, nanometers, and so on, you will never arrive at an exact, binary delineation between your hand and the surrounding air.
Leonardo understood this deeply.
The problem with the hard scientific approach applied by Michaelangelo is it cannot fully capture this infinite nature of reality.
This doesn’t just apply to painting. It’s true in all of science.
For the math nerds out there, a perfect illustration can be found in calculus.
Say, for instance, you are trying to calculate the area under this curved shape:
When you apply integral calculus (i.e. science) to this problem, what you’re really doing is splitting it up into infinite theoretical slices that approach the shape of the curve, as illustrated above. Then you calculate the combined area of the slices.
On a surface level, the result is very similar to reality. And yet, it is distinctly separate from actual reality.
It turns out, this shortcoming is highly significant for something you and I use every day: technology.
Because technology is the child of science, it inherits this fundamental flaw.
In all our interactions with it, something is lost.
The more we interact with it, the more is lost, and the more we feel that it is missing, especially when it comes to digital technology which is built on a foundation of ones and zeros (i.e. black and white).
This is why digital technology feels unnatural to us; it fundamentally alienates us from reality because it tries to paint the world in ones and zeros, and can therefore never capture the full richness of experience.
Life Through the Screen
Increasingly, we live life through our screens.
This is not going to change, and neither should we want it to – it’s now part of our evolution.
But if we want evolution to favor humans, we must raise the collective understanding of the fundamental flaw of technology.
No matter how vivid the colors are, what you see through your screen is not reality.
Beyond that, the screen is literally a physical border separating you even from this illusory world. (
has a great piece attacking this lack of contact with reality from a different angle).The result is all the negative consequences associated with digital technology use:
Self-doubt and feelings of lack from comparing yourself to the artificial standards created by the algorithms
Spending hours scrolling for something “more”
Getting “Zoom fatigue”
Your well-being suffers
But it doesn’t have to be this way. By understanding the fundamental flaw, you can create a new level of awareness while using digital tech.
Get Smart About Your Digital Tech Use
Every tool comes with both utility and potential negative side effects (a knife can both save a life and take one).
Digital technologies are no different.
While dramatically ending your relationship with your phone is a solution, it also means you lose access to all its utility.
You want to maximize the upside and avoid as much as possible of the downside. And you do it by increasing your awareness of the fundamental flaw in your daily digital tech use.
Based on this awareness, here are some actions I recommend:
Set expectations. Don’t expect from technology what you can only get from real experience. Your phone will never meet your need for intimacy and connection. View the internet as a game.
Prioritize real-life experience.
Convert internet friends to real-life meetups
Detach yourself as a person from your digital persona
Inject natural variation into your tech use (take regular movement breaks, use blue light blockers, etc).
Go surfing and skiing as much as you possibly can (this may apply mostly to me, sorry)
Decrease usage. Here’s something wild you may not know: you can actually turn off your phone/laptop etc. There is even a button for it. It can stay off for hours each day. Nothing will happen.
Epilogue:
I’m writing this on my new laptop. It’s got an apple on it. And all the bells and whistles. But it doesn’t feel like a tech product. It feels more like… a home. A companion. A magic portal of exploration. A tool for expression and creation. An extension of myself.
It holds tremendous power. And I must use it responsibly.