. Leonardo da Vinci, artist, thinker and man of science;. gged boulders, alternating with smilingvegetation ; scenery tunnelled by ravines, and ravaged by convulsions,as in some parts of the Apennines. They are one with the Flemingsin their love of detail. The others incline to laroe surfaces ; theirhills descend to plains and lakes by gradual undulations. Their land-scape, in short, is the Roman Campagna, rendered with masterly effectby Perugino and the Umbrian school. Leonardo, however, loves to complicate and refine upon thetraditional material. The gorges of Chiusuri and of Monte Olivetodo
. Leonardo da Vinci, artist, thinker and man of science;. gged boulders, alternating with smilingvegetation ; scenery tunnelled by ravines, and ravaged by convulsions,as in some parts of the Apennines. They are one with the Flemingsin their love of detail. The others incline to laroe surfaces ; theirhills descend to plains and lakes by gradual undulations. Their land-scape, in short, is the Roman Campagna, rendered with masterly effectby Perugino and the Umbrian school. Leonardo, however, loves to complicate and refine upon thetraditional material. The gorges of Chiusuri and of Monte Olivetodo not suffice him. He is not even content with the erratic bouldersof the monastery of La Vernia, in the Casentino. The mineralogistand geologist dominate the artist. He is fascinated by the strangeand monstrous dolomite rocks of the Friuli, gigantic cones emergingfrom vast table-lands, jagged peaks, grottoes no less imposing than thedolmens and menhirs of Brittany. Study for Ihc Hciid of I lie Infant fcsns in of the Rocks. /he Virent (IllE l.(ILVKl--«). Prinled by Dracger, Paris THE MADONNA LITTA 175 The soil is treated with all the tenderness the Primitives bestowedon accessories. Mantegna could not have been more exact, but Leon-ardo adds fancy to exactitude. Slabs of rocks, pebbles, plants (irises),make up the foreground. The grotto seems to breathe forth a strangeand penetrating moisture : we dream of nymphs, of sylphs, of gnomes,of all that world of fantasy evoked by Shakespeare in the MidsîinmierNights Dream, a world only Leonardo could have translated oncanvas. The background is composed of a series of perpendicularrocks, like sugar-loaves. Leonardo, spirit of hesitations and experiments though he was,shows a rare tenacity in his choice of landscape motives. Through-out his works, in the Virgin of the Rocks, the >S. Anne, the Mona Lisa,we find the same dolomite mountains, abrupt peaks rising from highplains in bizarre outline.^ He very probably made a journey in his
Size: 1463px × 1708px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublishernewyorkcscribnerss
