. The art of the Italian renaissance; a handbook for students and travellers. with the gesture of oiwho has said all that he has to say. He is not speaking, as He is in eve:earlier picture ; He does not even look up, but His silence is more eloqueithan words. It is that terrible silence, which leaves no hope. In the gesture of Jesus and in His form there is that tranquil granderwhich we term aristocratic, in the sense akin to the term noble. Tlepithet does not suggest itself before the work of any Quattrocentist. Vshould have thought that Leonardo had gone for his model to a diftereclass of me
. The art of the Italian renaissance; a handbook for students and travellers. with the gesture of oiwho has said all that he has to say. He is not speaking, as He is in eve:earlier picture ; He does not even look up, but His silence is more eloqueithan words. It is that terrible silence, which leaves no hope. In the gesture of Jesus and in His form there is that tranquil granderwhich we term aristocratic, in the sense akin to the term noble. Tlepithet does not suggest itself before the work of any Quattrocentist. Vshould have thought that Leonardo had gone for his model to a diftereclass of men, if we did not know that he himself created the type. Ihas here worked out the best of his own nature, and certainly this distintion is the connnon property of the Italian race of the sixteenth centuiHow the Germans from Holbein onwards ha\e striven to achieve the charof such a gesture ! Goethes mistake, wliicli has since been repeated, must be coiTected. He thou£that St. Peters movement Mas to be bj- his having strucli Judas iu the side wa knife. LEONARDO 33. The Last Supper, from an engraving hy ihirc Antonio. It might, however, be said again and again that the point, wliichmakes the Christ in this picture appear so absohitel\ different from theolder presentations, is not completely explained hv His form and mien, butthat the essential difference is found rather in the jjart assigned Him in thecomposition. The unity of the scene is lacking in the earlier Disciples are talking together, and the Saviour is speaking, and it isopen to question whether a distinction has always been made between theannouncement of the treachery and the institution of the Lords Supper. In any case i-tA!nas-qui±£^ien to the Quattrocentist conception to makethe utterance of the speech tlie mof/f of tlie cliief figure. Leonardo wasthe first to venture to do so, and by this boldness he gains the boundlessadvantage that he can now hold fast the dominant tone throughout aninfi
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