New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1898-12-11

. burning sky" says Stendhal "Ieonardo car
ned water into every corner OF the Milanese
territory. 1t Is to him the modern traveller
owes the admirable landscapes in which the
fertility and verdure Of the foreground are only
epraled by the fantastic shapes of the snow
covered mountains standing upon the distant
horizon for the delight of the eye" But We are
less concerned with the actual results of Leo
nardo's studies in hydraulics and irrigation than
With the extraordinary spectacle he presents OF
q great artist turning necessarily from art to a
hundred other interests. and never losing his
grip. The multiplicity Of his experiments may
have reacted upon his painting and sculpture,
causing him to leave his famous statue Of Fran
cesco SfarZa to perish in plaster. instead Of
pressing its transmutation into bronze he may
have left picture after picture unfinished be-
cause of a sudden desire TO pore geometry.
or botany. or physics or philosophy; but always
the store OF artistic inspiration remained I'M
diminished.
AS soon as he was able to support himself he
had taken leave of his family. and throughout
his career he less Of wanderer.
He left Florence for Milan. Ostersibly as a
mtist and improvsatore. but II Moro, a pas
honate lover Of the arts, kept him employed at
painting and sculpture until his fall. Leonardo
i
before he had taken service with Cesar Borgia
and had begun to travel about quasi military
missions, surveying fortified towns for his new
master and drawing up more plans for engi-
neering works and schemes Of offence and de-
fence. We hear of him. too, at Mantua and
Rome negotiating with the great Marchesa Isa-
bella d'Este or Pope Leo X. There misty
legends Of journeys made by him in the Orient
and at last entering the service Of Francis |. he
died in his sixty-seventh year. at Amboise
Through all these years of change and travel
he played many parts, artist and courtier,
inventor and anatomist and the unexpected
corollary to all this the amazing and inehable
charm Of his painted work, is an Interpretation
of beauty utterly without elements Of restless
ness or diversity
We are well aware Of the infinite profundities
which generations Of writer's have sought to
read into the Mona Lisa" and In the presence
of that matches portrait. or Of THE Last Sup
per" or of THE Virgin of the Rocks, IL Woulo
certainly be idle to avoid the recognition OF
great spiritual qualities, yet we venture 10 say
that II is not by virtue Of these particularly
that Leonardo survives. After long lie spent
tn arduous study in the reckless expenditure OF
precious energy upon scores OF ephemerai
topics in the slow evolution Of pictures which
by all the laws Of logic should be packed with
learning, science and philosophy Leonardo re-
mains a type Of improvisation the master OF
An art so radiant with the subtlest, most evan
escent ingredients Of supreme loneliness, that the
veighticr qualities fall into place as important
but not dominating parts Of consummate
whole How may it be defined? How are you
TO define a flower? NJ. Muntz employs more
than once the term "suavity," and If the secret
OF Leonardo is to be indicated by a word this
one may serve the purpose.
But 1t gives only an indication. and that more
with regard to the painters style than to his
entire artistic physiognomy. 1t takes no &C
count Of his originality which made him, an ar
ehitectural genius. with his contemporaries In
Producing architectural lines into all their re-
ngious compositions, paint "The Virgin of the
Rocks" with a landscape background unique In
the annals Of art Where Perugino was nalvely
pdetistic, he was. we may judge from even
tf,e ruins Of The Last Supper" one of the most
| poignant Of all the illustrators OF the life or
Christ Where Michael Angelo was violent he
had EXQUISITE repose; where Raphael raised FOR
| NAL design to its Hottest height. he used the
nveliest freedom; where Botticelli guile
| lessly imaginative, he was metaphysical and
/ srigmatic yet he yields to none OF these men
IN manifesting the soul OF the Renaissance and
tn waking the chords of sympathy between 1t
and our modern times. You feel that every
thing they had Is somehow immanent In his
work lurking beneath veil OF beauty so light
no diaphanous, so eloquent Of ease and spon ane-
aus nature, that you cannot believe that he
thought as they thought. labored as they Ia
bored felt the same influences that they felt.
and entered upon experiences which they never