Six Centuries of Painting

ordinary a genius should have fixed upon painting for his means of expression rather than any of his other natural gifts is the most telling evidence of the pre-eminence earned for that art by

was seen and acknowledged by all men in the case of Leonardo da Vinci, in whom, to say nothing of the beauty of his person, which was such that it could never be sufficiently extolled, there was a grace beyond expression which was manifested without thought or effort in every act and deed, and who besides had so rare a gift of talent and ability that to whatever subject he turned, however difficult, he presently made himself

, and to emphasise the significance of his having painted at all. To a man of such supreme genius the circumstances in which he found himself, rather than any particular

th their marvellous beauty and subtlety have probably had a wider influence, both on painters and on lovers of painting, than those of any other master. They seem to be endowed with a spir

whole world already knows so well. All that can be usefully added is a little of the tradition, where it is sufficiently authenticated,

the earliest times, but can hardly be taken, at any rate in its present condition, as a decided proof of the genius that was to be displayed in manhood. More certain are the S. Jerome in the Vatican, and the Adoration of the Kings in the Uffizi, though neither is carried beyond the earlier stages of "under-painting." A few finished portraits are now

aint a picture of the Virgin and Child for their church of the Conception, and that between 1491 and 1494 Leonardo and his assistant, Ambrogio di Predis, petitioned the Duke for an arbitration as to price. This was the famous Virgin of the Rocks, n

ry at the Victoria and Albert Museum is a notebook which contains his first memoranda for the wonde

-LEONARD

GIN OF

Gallery

s, Duke Lodovico wrote to his secretary "to urge Leonardo, the Florentine, to finish the work of the Refectory which he has begun, ... and that articles subscribed by his hand shall be executed which shall oblige him to finish the work within the time that shall be agreed upon." Matteo Bandello, in the prologue to one of his Novelle, describes how he saw him actually at work-"Leonardo, as I have more than once seen and observed him, used often to go early in t

as, the friars complained to the Duke that he had left it in this state for more than a year. Leonardo replied that for more than a year he had gone every morning and evening into the Borghetto, where all the worst sort of people lived, yet h

st and his work. "As far as I can gather," he writes, "the life of Leonardo is extremely variable and undetermined. Since his arrival here he has only made a sketch in a cartoon. It represents a Christ as a little child of about a year old, reaching forward out of his mother's arms towards a lamb. The mother, half rising from the lap of S. Anne, catches at the child as though to take it away from the lamb, the animal of sacrifice signifying the Passion. S. Anne, also rising a little from her seat, seems to wish to restrain her daughter from separating the child from th

obscure, but it is certain that the beautiful cartoon of the same subjec

e rosy and pearly tints which, like the eyelashes too, can only be rendered by means of the deepest subtlety; the eyebrows also are painted with the closest exactitude, where fuller and where more thinly set, in a manner that could not be more natural. The nose, with its beautiful and delicately roseate nostrils, seems to be alive. The mouth, wonderful in its outline, shows the lip

amuse her, so that she might continue cheerful, and keep away the melancholy that painters are apt to give to their portraits. In this picture there is a s

upon this quality of life-likeness and direct imitation of nature for his particular admiration, it is only because the first and foremost object of the earlier painters was in fact to represent the life; and though in the rarefied atmosphere of modern talk about art these na?ve criticisms may seem out of date, it is significant that between Vasari and ourselves there