self of what was good in it, or of what was wanting, and knew not how to supply a deficiency if he perceived it." In the works of that time we see the finest conceptions vainly laboring for an adequate expression; they do not fail from want of genius in the painter, but seem to die from the art not being yet adequate to receive and embody them. In all we seem to see a defeated effort, a semiarticulateness, a half-life, like that of the frogs in the mud of the river in the East, which only make out to get half formed, and while their lower extremities still stick in the clay, are stiffened by the increasing heat of the sun. "Then it was," says Goethe, "that Leonardo da Vinci came; and while he had an eye for the imitation of nature, he had at the same time the insight to perceive that nature had, behind the outwardly apparent which he could so felicitously copy, secret principles of working, which it was the painter's business, as a follower of nature, to discover and apply. He therefore labored to get possession of the laws of organic structure, the principles of proportion, and sought for rules by which he should group, posture, and color his objects in the given field; in short aimed, by getting at the hidden laws according to which all true effects must be produced, to make art not merely the diligent copyist, but the younger sister of nature. studied especially her workings in the variety of feature, wherein the momentary passions of the mind, as well as its permanent character, stamp themselves on the countenance. In this study he never was weary, and most remarkable fruits of it we have in this picture of the Last Supper." He Thanks to the benign rule of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Leonardo enjoyed during his youth and early manhood that quiet, which is so much loved by men of contemplative minds, and which was a very rare boon at that time in those perpetually distracted and warring Italian republics. If he did not enjoy directly the patronage of Lorenzo, he breathed the new atmosphere which he and his men of letters spread over Florence, and to the age of thirty cultivated the great talent which was to make itself so marvellously felt. In 1482, (not, as Goethe in the essay above quoted erroneously asserts, in consequence of the troublous times which followed the death of Lorenzo, but ten years before that lamented event,) he went, on invita 1846.] Leonardo's Works. 415 tion of Ludovico surnamed il Moro, to Milan, where he was established for seventeen years, the most important period of his life. Here he made himself eminent not merely as a painter, but as a sculptor, a musician, a poet, and an engineer. In all these characters his genius seems to have highly signalized him. He first charmed his patron with his lyre; he sang delicate verses of his own improvisation; he wrote essays on art which remain. unrivalled; and in the construction of the canal by which the waters of the Adda are brought through the Val Tellino, a distance of two hundred miles, to the capital, he displayed a knowledge and invention which were at that day unsurpassed. This remains a substantial monument of his skill; but a most singular fatality seems to have hung over the masterpieces of his art, and though his fame can never perish, those works of his in which his consummate powers were most perfectly exhibited, have been from various causes destroyed and utterly lost to the world. This was the case with a colossal equestrian statue, which he modelled at Milan, and which was broken to pieces in an attempt to drag it as part of a great procession through the streets; and after he had restored it, it was again pitched upon as a target by the French soldiers when they took possession of the city in 1599, and thus "the labor of sixteen years" at once annihilated. Then too, a cartoon of the battle of Anghiari, which, on returning in this year to Florence, he had made in competition with Michael Angelo, and which is greatly celebrated by his contemporaries, has been also destroyed, and we know it only by means of a copy which remains. And lastly, the great picture, the engraving of which has suggested these remarks, has faded and mouldered, and experienced almost every calamity which neglect, or presumption, or brutality, or accident, or time could bring upon it, and looks out as it were through a heavy, melancholy mist yet for a few years upon the world, and then will have vanished with its lost sisters into the realm of thought. A sad fatality this, by which such footsteps of angels have been washed away! But the Demiurgus, by whose wrath those things perished, has allowed other works to remain, and brought down to us many a wondrous image from this son of the harmonies. Besides all that are in Italy, there are the "Christ among the doctors" of the National Gallery in London, and that indescribable beauty, the celebrated portrait called "Mona Lisa" at the Hague, and at the latter place also a picture of Leda and her children, called by the dunces of the guide-books "Charity," and a few other exceedingly prized pieces which bear the mark of his genius and of his patient hand. On returning to Florence in the last year of the century, he found no mean rival waiting for him in the person of Michael Angelo, and in popularity and in the patronage of the princes he was obliged to yield to him. This was owing, it is said, to his slowness of execution, which wearied his patrons with waiting, before he had begun to satisfy his own delicate and perfect taste. From this harassing rivalship he escaped, by accepting in 1515 the invitation of Francis I., of France, who had seen at Milan the Last Supper in its first glory, and taking up his residence in a new metropolis. There he lived four years without executing any new works, and died in 1519, as it is related, in the effort to raise himself from his bed when he received a visit from the King. We turn now to our special subject, the picture of the Last Supper, which Leonardo painted on the wall of the refectory of the Dominican convent at Milan. We will lay before the reader some extracts from the above quoted essay of the great German critic, with the view of assisting him in a comprehension of the meaning, and of the peculiar beauties, difficulties, and calamities of this great work. The essay has been translated, we observe from a notice by Goethe himself, into English, by Noehden, (London, 1821). That translation we have not seen. Perhaps it is not to be found in this country. We are obliged to make such a version as we can from the original. Goethe begins by remarking, that the place where the picture is painted is first of all to be considered; for that in the choice of the subject in reference to that, the wisdom of the painter is particularly exhibited. "Could anything fitter or nobler be imagined for a refectory, than a Last Supper which was to be sacred for all times and for the whole world?” And herein the picture is particularly interesting to us, that the subject did not belong peculiarly to the Roman Catholic Church, but to the Church in - 1846.] Goethe's Criticism. 417 all time, and that it was treated in such a manner as to be equally symbolical to every nation and time as to his own. No gilded halos surround the heads, Peter is not burdened with the keys, nor are any saints in monkish garments introduced as assisting; but all is liberal, untechnical, simple, appealing to the Christian heart, nay, to the human heart, to the best and most universal sensibilities of our nature, so that in the various copies of itself, manifold in their degrees of imperfection, which, while it is fading away, it has called into life, and sent, as it were like messengers from Leonardo's heart, all over Europe and into the residences of other races, it will continue to charm and raise the soul for generations upon generations, wherever tenderness or generosity of heart is found. But by these remarks we interrupt the connexion of our author's criticism. In reference to the happy choice of a subject, he goes on to say: "In travelling many years ago we saw this eating-hall, before its original arrangement had been disturbed. Opposite the entrance on the narrow side, at the bottom of the room, stood the table of the prior; along the two sides. the tables of the monks, raised all one step above the floor; and when you faced about, you then saw on the fourth wall, over the door, which was not very high, a fourth table painted, and Christ and his disciples seated at it, as if a part of the company. At the hour of eating that must have been indeed a sight to see, the prior's table and Christ's standing over against one another, with the monks' shut in between. And here we understand the wisdom of the painter in taking for his model the very tables there in use. The table-cloth itself, with its creases, its figured stripes and knotted corners, came evidently, too, out of the convent laundry; and the dishes, plates, cups and other table furniture one may see are taken from those which the friars habitually used.' Goethe goes on to say, that "this was not the time for attempting an approximation to an uncertain obsolete posture," that to have stretched out the sacred company here on cushions, after the fashion of the ancients, would have greatly impaired the effect; for now "the past was to be approximated to the present, and Christ be made to sup with the Dominicans in Milan." VOL. XL. - 4TH. S. VOL. V. NO. III. 37 In other respects also the management of the subject was such that it could not fail to produce a great effect. "About ten feet above the ground, the thirteen figures, all drawn half larger than life, occupy a space of eight and twenty Paris feet in length. Only two of them, at the opposite ends of the table, are seen entire; the rest are half-figures. And in this the artist found his advantage in necessity. All moral expression belongs exclusively to the upper part of the body; and the feet are in such cases as this always in the way. Here then the painter grouped eleven figures, leaving them concealed below the waist by the table and table-cloth, and letting the feet scarcely appear in modest twilight below. "Now let one transport himself to the spot, imagine the decorum and outward quiet, which reign in the dining-hall of a religious establishment, and admire the artist, who breathes into his composition a passionate agitation, and while he brings it as near to nature as possible, puts it in contrast with the surrounding reality." The cause of this agitation is, of course, understood to be the declaration of Christ, "Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me," one of you is about to betray me, referring to an immediate danger, an impending fate. The words have already been spoken, and all the company are thrown thereby into the greatest alarm. "He sits in silence, his eyes cast downward, his head gently inclined, the whole attitude, the gesture of the arms and hands, all repeating the same melancholy declaration : 'Yes; it is even so! there is one among you who betrays me.'" We will now quote Goethe's observations on a peculiar means by which expression is given to the figures, and then his comments on the figures severally, as to what, especially, we are to understand them to express; for here there is variety of judgment, and the little pamphlet that is sold with this American engraving gives but a miserable and beggarly account of the matter. We will lay our author's criticism before the reader without interrupting it with any remarks of our own. "Before we go farther, we must speak of a great means, by which chiefly Leonardo enlivens this picture, the movement, namely, of the hands; which is what only an Italian |
