C. Lewis Hind

“ We hear the shouts of barbaric warfare as we draw them from their quiet resting-places in orderly portfolios. The "bestial frenzy" of war was never depicted with greater force than in Leonardo's studies for the last Cartoon for the Battle of Anghiari, where horses gnash at each other, and soldiers, filled with the lust of war, scream incoherent cries. The heads of two men in a drawing in the Buda-Pest Gallery, in the very act of slaying, mouths wide open, breathing fury, are almost painful to look upon. ”

“ And always the eyes of his women are cast down, an attitude that he rarely gives to his men, whose heads often have a touch of caricature, a hint, but never pushed to the extreme that he allowed himself in the grotesque.
In the bust of a woman in profile at Milan we have a sketch that in the unflattering presentment of a likeness is akin to his remarkable drawing of Isabella d'Este, now in the Louvre. ”

“ A Florentine poet of the Quattrocento, who knew Leonardo in his early manhood, described him as the man who "perhaps excels all others, yet cannot tear himself away from a picture, and in many years scarce brings one to completion." His mind was continually putting forth fresh shoots. We can imagine him, before beginning to paint the wings of the angel in his picture of The Annunciation in the Louvre, studying the ways of birds at rest and in flight, and considering the problem of the possibility of man ever achieving the conquest of the air. ”

“ His "Treatise on Painting" is easily accessible in Dr. Richter's "Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci"—that wonderful treatise which begins: "The young student should, in the first place, acquire a knowledge of perspective, to enable him to give every object its proper dimensions: after which, it is requisite that he be under the care of an able master, to accustom him, by degrees, to a good style of drawing the parts. Next, he should study Nature, in order to confirm and fix in his mind the reason of those precepts which he has learnt. ”

“ Actuality is introduced in the persons of the retainers of the kings, busy with their own affairs, amusing their leisure with a mock combat. In the drawing in the Uffizi, of which we give a reproduction, the retainers are shown below the great double staircase engaged in a joust. One wonders if Velasquez, who did not reach his usual standard of perfection when he drew a prancing steed, ever saw any of Leonardo's drawings of resolute and spirited horses. ”

“ The grotesque and the terrible often have an attraction for gifted minds, forming a relief from the endless quest after beauty and the physical strain of living continually on the heights. Rossetti composed verses that are not included in his collected works. A distinguished living writer has confessed that the byways of his leisure are brightened by the study of criminology. The late Arthur Strong, commenting on the grotesques by Leonardo da Vinci at Chatsworth, contributes this curious and interesting theory: "His method was akin to the geometry of projection. ”

“ Leonardo da Vinci found in drawing the readiest and most stimulating way of self-expression. The use of pen and crayon came to him as naturally as the monologue to an eager and egoistic talker. The outline designs in his "Treatise on Painting" aid and amplify the text with a force that is almost unknown in modern illustrated books. Open the pages at random. Here is a sketch showing "the greatest twist which a man can make in turning to look at himself behind." The accompanying text is hardly needed. The drawing supplies all that Leonardo wished to convey. ”

“ He was ever curious, as well as a seeker after beauty, and life being his province, he loved to intrigue the human element into a Madonna and Child motive. The Child playing with the cat, hugging a lamb, learning his lessons at his mother's knee, numbers of them testify to Leonardo's direct and large-hearted humanity. ”

“ Then, perhaps, for the mind is always alert when thinking of Leonardo, we recall a note in one of his manuscripts wherein he expresses his conviction that some day with the help of steam a boat may be set in motion, and another passage in his handwriting, perhaps really nearer to his real self than the order for those four high and thirty low masses—this: "When I thought I was learning to live, I was but learning to die." ”

“ Through all his dreams, through all his scientific, human, and grotesque imaginings, he never ceased from the quest of beauty, that obsession of the true artist, which he expressed so often in the faces of his women, their hair and hands, in the looks of children, in the fall and fold of draperies, and in the figures of armed knights setting forth to tourney or to battle. One only has to recall the face of St. Anne in the Louvre picture, the curling, plaited hair about the head of Leda in the Windsor drawing, the strange sexless charm of the smile of St. ”

“ In his writings Leonardo describes war as a "bestial frenzy," and in this grand conception of a rearing horse trampling upon a warrior, who is trying to protect himself with his shield, it was perhaps his intention to pillory the horror-of-war, while at the same time producing a heroic design. ”

“ He was for ever preparing and experimenting, for ever storing and developing his mind, for ever increasing the cunning of his hands, as if life were endless. His sixty-seven years of activity were all too short for this giant, who excelled in every worthy pursuit of mortals except commerce and politics. ”

“ Moderns who try to paint without first undergoing the drudgery of drawing for some years in the schools should ponder over Leonardo's studies of the nude, reading at the same time the chapters on "Proportion" in his "Treatise on Painting." ”

“ There is no mistaking~the drawings for the Sforza statue, although it is not easy to decide which of the many designs of equestrian figures were for the Statue of Francesco Sforza, and which for the Trivulzio Monument. One of the Windsor drawings shows no fewer than four sketches on one sheet for the group of horse and rider, which, we are told, was twenty-six feet high. It would seem that Leonardo's first intention was to make Francesco Sforza's charger trampling on a fallen enemy, but that he abandoned this tremendous conception for a quieter design. ”

“ The restlessness of that profound and soaring mind is nowhere so evident as in the drawings and in the sketches that illustrate the manuscripts. Nature, in lavishing so many gifts upon him, perhaps withheld concentration, although it might be argued that, like the bee, he did not leave a flower until all the honey or nourishment he needed was withdrawn. ”

“ In a drawing at Milan the Child is apparently receiving a lesson in geometry—one of Leonardo's special studies. "He is entirely wrapped up in geometry, and has no patience for painting," writes a correspondent to Isabella d'Este in reply to a letter from her asking what Leonardo was doing. ”