The study and criticism of Italian art . s of regret, but onthe contrary a sense of a long-desired I realized that the efforts of many years tosuppress my instinctive feelings about Mona Lisa had been vain. She had simply become an incubus,and I was glad to be rid of her. But I did not dare even then. Who was I to liftup my feeble voice against the organ resonances ofthe centuries? Mona Lisa, however, was not the only master-piece of the Tuscan Empedocles that I had come tothe Louvre to worship. The high altar was hers,but next came the Madonna with St. Anne, andhere too I ad
The study and criticism of Italian art . s of regret, but onthe contrary a sense of a long-desired I realized that the efforts of many years tosuppress my instinctive feelings about Mona Lisa had been vain. She had simply become an incubus,and I was glad to be rid of her. But I did not dare even then. Who was I to liftup my feeble voice against the organ resonances ofthe centuries? Mona Lisa, however, was not the only master-piece of the Tuscan Empedocles that I had come tothe Louvre to worship. The high altar was hers,but next came the Madonna with St. Anne, andhere too I adored but failed to understand, until Iunderstood and ceased to adore. Behind the post-hypnotic suggestions I was endeavouring to followout, something in me rebelled against the arrange-ment and the expression. The Blessed Virgin, theChild, the landscape I joyously consented to, butSt. Anne—she alarmed me with her airs of a greatlady and look of indulgent omniscience. Besides, Iwas distressed in body and mind to see what she w LEONARDO. [Louvre, Paris. THE BAPTIST LEONARDO 5 was doing. Seated on no visible or inferable supportshe in turn on her left knee alone sustained the rest-less weight of a daughter as heavy as herself. Thesilhouette, moreover, was unavoidably confused, and,but for the grace of incorruptible European sense,might easily have initiated patterns ending in thedizzy fantasies of South Indian sculpture. The St. John occupied the altar opposite inthe imaginary shrine to Leonardo erected by mymasters. I no longer recall what spiritual rewards Iwas to expect if I inclined my heart and understand-ing to worship here too. But though I was too inno-cent to suspect the reason, I felt far from comfortablein the presence of this apparition looming tenebrouslyout of the murky darkness. The face leered at mewith an exaggeration of all that had repelled me inthe Mona Lisa and in the St. Anne. And I couldnot conceive why this fleshy female should pretendto be the virile, su
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