Leonardo da Vinci, artist, thinker and man of science; . and Michel-angelo. In Leonardos work, knowledge, sublety, distinction, pervadethe whole, without weakening the magnificent dash of the cartoon may be lacking in that science of picturesquegrouping, which he never attained at any time. But how eloquentare his athletic forms, how noble his attitudes ! How clear, living,dramatic, powerful even to brutality, the whole picture is! Thegenerous passion of liberty, the noble audacity of the old Republic,shone for the last time in this cartoon of Buonarrotis. And this wa
Leonardo da Vinci, artist, thinker and man of science; . and Michel-angelo. In Leonardos work, knowledge, sublety, distinction, pervadethe whole, without weakening the magnificent dash of the cartoon may be lacking in that science of picturesquegrouping, which he never attained at any time. But how eloquentare his athletic forms, how noble his attitudes ! How clear, living,dramatic, powerful even to brutality, the whole picture is! Thegenerous passion of liberty, the noble audacity of the old Republic,shone for the last time in this cartoon of Buonarrotis. And this was the last, too, of those grand contests, so appropriateto the spirit of Florentine democracy, immortalised by Brunellesco,Ghiberti, Donatello, Delia Robbia, and many another. Florence, onthe eve of losing her freedom, could not have desired a morebrilliant finale than this epic struggle between the two greatest of hersons, Michelangelo and Leonardo. ^^«é»^ K/tS^^ fcSr ^p,^/M^. N^-? J^- ? JV- \, n\LAU .OF AN OLD MAN. (Bonnat Collection, Paris.). SKliTCH OP HORSES AND HORSEMEN. (Royal Library, Turin.) CHAPTER VI THE MONA LISA AND LEONARDOS FEMALE PORTRAITS—THE LEDA—DEPARTURE FROM FLORENCE. NEPTUNE -THE £\ i-j = jl ,-^^à w ?^^^^ ? ^ r^ 1 i i ^C t ^fe -^^Èl R Le temps efface lart avec un doigt tro|) prompt,Et lEternité manque à la force Vinci sous son crêpe à peine se devineEt de Mona Lisa lombre envahit le front. (Théophile Gautier.) ELIGIOUS and historical art—the Saint Anneand the Battle of Anghiari—had not so absorbedLeonardo as to leave him no time for lessserious work : ^ there is a pendant to these two master-pieces—the most marvellous of all portraits, antique ormodern, the glory of the Louvre—the Mona Lisa. Poets and novelists, historians and aesthetic students,have all done honour to the prodigies of executionapparent in the Gioconda, and built up a series of themost ingenious hypotheses as to the character of theoriginal. But none of the
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