But Leonardo will never work till the
happy moment comes--that moment of bien-etre, which to imaginative men
is a moment of invention. On this moment he waits; other moments are but
a preparation, or after-taste of it. Few men distinguish between them as
jealously as he did. Hence so many flaws even in the choicest work. But
for Leonardo the distinction is absolute, and, in the moment of
bien-etre, the alchemy complete: the idea is stricken into colour and
imagery: a cloudy mysticism is refined to a subdued and graceful
mystery, and painting pleases the eye while it satisfies the soul.
*How princely, how characteristic of Leonardo, the answer, Quanto piu,
un'arte porta seco fatica di corpo, tanto piu e vile!
This curious beauty is seen above all in his drawings, and in these
chiefly in the abstract grace of the bounding lines. Let us take some of
these drawings, and pause over them awhile; and, first, one of those at
Florence--the heads of a woman and a little child, set side by side, but
each in its own separate frame.
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