da Vinci Leonardo - The Drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci Master Draughtsman Series

This book made available by the Internet Archive.

PLATE

PROFILE OF A WARRIOR... Frontispiece

PORTRAIT OF ISABELLA D'ESTE i

STUDY OF AN OLD MAN n

STUDY OF DRAPERIES FOR KNEELING FIGURES . in

STUDY OF A BACCHUS iv

HEAD OF A MAN v

BATTLE BETWEEN HORSEMEN AND MONSTERS . vi WOMAN SEATED ON GROUND AND CHILD

KNEELING vn

STUDIES OF HEADS vm

YOUTH ON HORSEBACK ix

STUDIES FOR THE EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF

FRANCESCO SFORZA x

}^THE VIRGIN, ST. ANNE AND INFANT ... xi

STUDIES OF CHILDREN , xii

THE COMBAT xm

STUDY FOR A MADONNA xiv

STUDIES FOR "THE HOLY FAMILY" ... xv

STUDIES FOR "THE LAST SUPPER" .... xvi

COURTYARD OF A CANNON-FOUNDRY... xvn

STUDY OF THE HEAD OF AN APOSTLE... xvm STUDY FOR BACKGROUND OF "THE ADORATION

OF THE MAGI" xix

STUDY OF LANDSCAPE xx

STUDY OF A TREE xxi

TWO HEADS. CARICATURES xxn

ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST xxm

THE HEAD OF CHRIST xxiv

CARICATURES xxv

HEAD OF AN ANGEL xxvi

STUDY OF A MAN'S HEAD xxvn

PLATE

STUDIES OF HANDS ..... xxvm

DRAGON FIGHTING WITH A LION .... xxix

MAN KNEELING xxx

PORTRAIT STUDY xxxi

STUDIES OF ANIMALS xxxn

PORTRAIT OF LEONARDO, BY HIMSELF... xxxni

SIX HEADS OF MEN AND A BUST OF A WOMAN xxxiv

STUDY OF A HEAD xxxv

THE ST. ANNE CARTOON xxxvi

STUDIES OF HORSES xxxvn

HEADS OF A WOMAN AND A CHILD... xxxvm

STUDY OF DRAPERY FOR A KNEELING FIGURE . xxxix

KNIGHT IN ARMOUR XL

STUDY OF A YOUTHFUL HEAD XLI

STUDY FOR "LEDA" XLII

HEAD OF AN OLD MAN XLIII

STUDY OF A HEAD XLIV

STUDY OF THE HEAD OF ST. PHILIP FOR "THE

LAST SUPPER" XLV

STUDY OF DRAPERY XLVI

GIRL'S HEAD XLVII

STUDIES OF A SATYR WITH A LION XLVIII

THE DRAWINGS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI

BY C. LEWIS HIND

EONARDO 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.

Unlike Velasquez, whose authentic drawings are almost negligible, pen, pencil, silver-point, or chalk were rarely absent from Leonardo's hand, and although, in face of the Monna Lisa and The Virgin of the '^pcks and the St. Anne^ it is an exaggeration to say that he would have been quite as highly esteemed had none of his work except the drawings been preserved, it is in the drawings that we realise the extent of " that continent called Leonardo." The inward-smiling women of the pictures, that have given Leonardo as painter a place apart in the painting hierarchy, appear again and again in the drawings. And in the domain of sculpture, where Leonardo also triumphed, although nothing modelled by his hand now remains, we read in Vasari of certain " heads of women smiling."

" His spirit was never at rest," says Antonio Billi, his earliest biographer, " his mind was ever devising new things." 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. He begins a drawing on a sheet of paper, his imagination darts and leaps, and the paper is soon covered with various

THE DRAWINGS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI designs. Upon the margins of his manuscripts he jotted down pictorial ideas. Between the clauses of the " Codex Atlanticus " we find an early sketch for his lost picture of Leda.

The world at large to-day reverences him as a painter, but to Leonardo painting was but a section of the full circle of life. Everything that offered food to the vision or to the brain of man appealed to him. In the letter that he wrote to the Duke of Milan in 1482, offering his services, he sets forth, in detail, his qualifications in engineering and military science, in constructing buildings, in conducting water from one place to another, beginning with the clause, " I can construct bridges which are very light and strong and very portable." Not until the end of this long letter does he mention the fine arts, contenting himself with the brief statement, " I can further execute sculpture in marble, bronze, or clay, also in painting I can do as much as any one else, whoever he be." Astronomy, optics, physiology, geology, botany, he brought his mind to bear upon all. Indeed, he who undertakes to write upon Leonardo is dazed by the range of his activities. He was military engineer to Caesar Borgia ; he occupied himself with the construction of hydraulic works in Lombardy ; he proposed to raise the Baptistery of San Giovanni at Florence ; he schemed to connect the Loire by an immense canal with the Saone ; he experimented with flying-machines ; and his early biographers testify to his skill as a musician. Painting and modelling he regarded but as a moiety of his genius. He spared no labour over a creation that absorbed him. Matteo Bandello, a member of the convent of Santa Maria della Grazie, gives the following account of his method when engaged upon The Last Supper. " He was wont, as I myself have often seen, to mount the scaffolding early in the morning and work until the approach of night, and in the interest of painting he forgot both meat and drink. There came two, three, or even four days when he did not stir a hand, but spent an hour or two in contemplating his work, examining and criticising the figures. I have seen him, too, at noon, when the sun stood in the sign of Leo, leave the Corte Vecchia (in the centre of the town), where he was engaged on his equestrian statue, and go straight to Santa Maria della Grazie, mount the scaffolding, seize a brush, add two or three touches to a single figure, and return forthwith."

Leonardo impressed his contemporaries and touched their imaginations, even as he captivates us to-day. Benvenuto Cellini describes King Francis as hanging upon Leonardo's words during the last years of his life, and saying that " he did not believe that any other o

THE DRAWINGS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI

man had come into the world who had attained so great a knowledge as Leonardo." Everybody knows Pater's luminously imaginative essay on Leonardo, and scientific criticism has said perhaps the last word upon his achievement in Mr. McCurdy's recent volume, and in Mr. Herbert P. Home's edition of Vasari's " Life." As to the drawings, Mr. Bernhard Berenson, in his costly work on " The Drawings of the Florentine Masters," has included a catalogue raisonne, has scattered lovely reproductions through the pages, and placed his favourites on the pinnacle of his appreciation. In the manuscripts, with their wealth of sketches in the text, one realises the tremendous sweep of Leonardo's mental activity. Some are still unpublished, but the Italian Government promise a complete edition of the MSS. at an early date. 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. He must also bestow some time in viewing the works of various old masters, to form his eye and judgment, in order that he may be able to put in practice all that he has been taught." Chapter ccxxx. in the section on " Colours " is entitled " How to paint a Picture that will Last Almost for Ever." In view of the present condition of The Last Supper at Milan, fading from sight, Leonardo was wise to insert the word " almost." He is constantly giving the reader surprises, and not the least of them is the series of" Fables" from his pen, included in Dr. Richter's edition of his literary works.