. Leonardo da Vinci, artist, thinker and man of science. tention fromthe action. Leonardo was undoubtedly the advocate of a rigorous delimitationin the various branches of art. It would be difficult otherwise toexplain why he, familiar as he was with all the laws of architecture,should have excluded from his pictures those architectural back-grounds and views of buildings so admirably calculated to enhancetheir effect. Perhaps no other artist, with the exception of Brunel-lesco, Piero della Francesca, and Mantegna, had worked out the laws ARCHITECTURAL BACKGROUNDS IN ART 197 of linear perspect
. Leonardo da Vinci, artist, thinker and man of science. tention fromthe action. Leonardo was undoubtedly the advocate of a rigorous delimitationin the various branches of art. It would be difficult otherwise toexplain why he, familiar as he was with all the laws of architecture,should have excluded from his pictures those architectural back-grounds and views of buildings so admirably calculated to enhancetheir effect. Perhaps no other artist, with the exception of Brunel-lesco, Piero della Francesca, and Mantegna, had worked out the laws ARCHITECTURAL BACKGROUNDS IN ART 197 of linear perspective with equal ardour. It would, therefore, havebeen easy for him to have brought the various planes of his composi-tions into relief by the introduction of buildings. But the only worksin which we find him making use of this artifice are the Last Supperand the cartoon for the Adoration of the Magi; in the latter, only forthe background. To this artistic scruple, Leonardos easel picturesno doubt owe much of their freedom; but, on the other hand, it has. the last supper. right side, (in its present state.) deprived them of many beauties. It is evident that the innumerabledevices of linear perspective, the art of bringing figures, buildings, andornament into relief by their inter-relation, enabled Mantegna to giveto decorative painting a vigour, a wealth of combination, unknownbefore his time ; that the progress thus achieved was carried furtherstill by the Venetians, notably by Paolo Veronese, the successor ofMantegna in this domain ; and that it was finally brought to perfectionin the seventeenth century by the great Rubens, in his turn theartistic offspring of Veronese. Leonardo, however, seems to have 198 LEONARDO DA VINCI had too deep a veneration for the human form to subordinate it tothe exigencies of any architect, even such an architect as his rivalBramante.^ The Last Siippei^ has undergone so many sacrilegious mutilationsthat it is, unhappily, no longer possible to judg
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