Leonardo da Vinci Read online

  Complementary to this Gothic idealization is the exquisite naturalism of the details (Pl. 23). Hands and feet and hair are observed with a curiosity hardly to be found elsewhere in painting. Leonardo has mastered their structure, but his real delight is in their surfaces, in the delicate skin stretched taut or relaxed into tucks and dimples, with a play of line and light beyond ordinary observation. Similarly, flowers and grasses are depicted with a Gothic understanding of their individual character. They recall the finest carved capitals of the thirteenth century. The Flemish painters, who loved to scatter flowers over their foregrounds, never gave this feeling of growth and inner life, and Leonardo’s pupils, who imitated his profusion of plants, could not make them coherent parts of the whole design.

  Although the imagery and, to some extent, the details of the Virgin of the Rocks are still perceptible, we must always remember how much of Leonardo’s intention is obscured. We can form no real conception of the colour, the values, or the general tone of the original, buried as it is under layer upon layer of thick yellow varnish.{18} In the darks some mixture of bitumen has made the surface cake and crack like mud, and there are innumerable patches of old repaint all over the picture. All this must be borne in mind before we say that at this date Leonardo was a dark painter and an uninteresting colourist. Even from its present condition we can see that the Virgin of the Rocks was once remarkably luminous, with a subtle feeling for reflected light; and it is this luminosity which distinguishes Leonardo from his Milanese followers.

  Such, then, was the picture which Leonardo took to Milan as a proof that he had mastered or surpassed the traditional skill of Fra Filippo Lippi, Verrocchio, and other Florentine masters of devotional painting. Soon after he arrived he was introduced to the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, who were looking for a painter to fill the central part of an elaborate carved frame left on their hands by the sculptor del Maino. He may have owed the introduction to two local painters, the brothers Evangelista and Ambrogio Preda (now generally known as da Predis), since their names appear with his in the Commission, and Ambrogio continued to take a leading part in the subsequent disputes. They were unskilful artists, and Leonardo can have been associated with them only because of their workshop connexions. As things turned out they also proved to be unbusinesslike.

  The subject of the picture which they asked him to paint is stated in the Contract: ‘Our Lady and her Son with the angels, done in oil with the utmost care; and with these two prophets’. In fact, Leonardo chose to make another version of his Virgin of the Rocks. Since, in subsequent documents, the Confraternity never mention this change of subject, it is possible that Leonardo showed them his Florentine masterpiece and persuaded them to accept a replica of it. He may have thought the sum offered too small to justify the labour of a fresh composition, and perhaps hoped that his patrons would be satisfied with a copy largely executed by Ambrogio da Predis. But the Confraternity were determined to have a work from his own hand, and for this reason the central panel was left unfinished for twenty-three years. During that time Predis and Leonardo made two appeals for additional payment: one by Predis alone dated 1503, and one by the partners jointly. They pointed to the small sums paid to them in comparison with that expended on the frame and estimated their work at 1200 lire, of which 400 was to go towards Leonardo’s picture, instead of the 100 originally promised him. Their appeals were evidently dismissed, and in fact they seem to have been slightly disingenuous: for example they do not allude to the fact that Leonardo’s picture was unfinished. Yet it may have been no more than a grisaille sketch, for when the final settlement was reached in 1506 he was given two years in which to complete it. The frame, whose costly splendours were the cause of Predis’s petition, has long since disappeared, and of his part nothing survives except the left-hand angel which came, with Leonardo’s central panel, to the National Gallery. It is in an old-fashioned Lombard technique, unmodified by Leonardo’s influence save in the drawing of the draperies. The right-hand angel, also in the National Gallery, is by a different hand, perhaps by the pupil who assisted Leonardo with the central panel, and must have been painted considerably later.

  Apart from the Virgin of the Rocks, Leonardo’s time seems to have been entirely taken up with work for the court. We know from various contemporary references that he practically held the post of court limner, and painted portraits of two of Ludovico’s mistresses, Cecilia Gallerani and Lucrezia Crivelli. Several portraits dating from this period have survived with ancient ascriptions to Leonardo, but their authenticity has always been open to doubt, chiefly on account of a prosaic quality which the amateur is reluctant to associate with him. Leonardo’s drawings show that he could be prosaic, or rather objective, if occasion demanded, and these portraits need a liberal and patient examination.

  Most modern critics believe that the picture at Kraków, of a Lady with an Ermine, represents Cecilia Gallerani, and is Leonardo’s original (Pl. 24). This picture was celebrated in a sonnet by the court poet Bellincioni (who died in 1492), in which he describes the sitter as seeming to listen and not to speak. It is also referred to in a letter from Cecilia Gallerani to Isabella d’Este written on 29 April 1498. Isabella had asked her to send her portrait by Leonardo; but Cecilia Gallerani replies that she would rather not do so as it no longer resembles her, not through any shortcoming in the master but because it was done when she was still immature and her appearance had since changed completely. Cecilia became Ludovico’s mistress in 1481, and to judge from her letter to Isabella d’Este the portrait must have been painted soon afterwards. All this evidence fits very well with the picture at Kraków. Knowing how Renaissance women contrived to look middle-aged before they were twenty, we may say that the sitter can have been no more than a girl. Her attentive expression is exactly that described by Bellincioni, and the beast which she holds on her arm is doubly symbolical of her identity: first, because the ermine was frequently used as Ludovico’s emblem, and secondly, because its Greek name γαλέη or γαλη had a punning reference to her own name. Finally, the Kraków picture must date from the first years after Leonardo’s arrival in Milan. Those parts which are well preserved are still in the clear colours of the Florentine quattrocento tradition. Parts of the picture are in bad condition. The whole background is new and the left side of the figure has been repainted. But certain parts are intact—the ermine, the lady’s face, and her hand, all but the tips of the two lower fingers. These parts alone are sufficient evidence that the picture is by Leonardo. The face has lost a little subtlety through the repainted background sharpening the original outline, but the drawings of the eyes and nose still have the beautiful simplification which we find in the early silverpoint drawings. Although the outline of the shoulder has been hardened, we can still recognize Leonardo’s sense of form, which we find again, twenty years later, in a red chalk drawing for the Madonna with the Yarn Winder (P. 173). The hand shows an understanding of anatomical structure and a power of particularization none of Leonardo’s pupils possessed. But most convincing of all is the beast. The modelling of its head is a miracle; we can feel the structure of the skull, the quality of skin, the He of the fur. No one but Leonardo could have conveyed its stoatish character, sleek, predatory, alert, yet with a kind of heraldic dignity. The serpentine pose of the ermine gives, in epigrammatic form, the motive of the whole composition and it is this movement, quite apart from details, which distinguishes it from the other portraits of this date attributed to Leonardo, such as the Belle Ferronnière in the Louvre.

  One other portrait of this date seems to me to be by Leonardo’s own hand alone and unaided: the Portrait of a Musician in the Ambrosiana (Pl. 25). The modelling of the head (the body is unfinished) is very similar to that of the angel in the Virgin of the Rocks, and even closer to the preparatory drawing for the angel at Turin, which was done direct from nature. It must date from about 1485-90. Comparison with other Leonardesque portraits of men, such as that in the Brera inscribed Vita si s
cias uti longa est, is perhaps misleading, since they reflect his later manner in a cold chiaroscuro; but even allowing for a difference of date, their waxen pallor must be due to pupils, the subtle luminous modelling of the Musician to Leonardo himself. The delicate observation of light, as it passes across the convex forms, should be considered with drawings of the same date, studies of horses for the Sforza monument, or skulls in the Anatomical MS. B. They remind us how far Leonardo’s naturalism had developed before he chose to abandon it. This portrait has the further distinction that it is perhaps the best preserved of Leonardo’s paintings. We are thus able to learn something of his actual use of pigment, elsewhere obscured by dirty varnish, and we see that it was less smooth and licked than that of his followers.{19}

  We now come to two famous portraits which are generally considered the work of pupils. They belong to a period, about 1490, when we have the first records of two pupils with whose individual work we are acquainted, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio and Marco d’Oggiono. Boltraffio was the most respectable of all Leonardo’s immediate pupils and, although his documented work dates from a later period, his style is consistent enough for us to attribute to him two beautiful pictures of the Virgin and Child which must belong to the 1490s, one in Budapest, the other in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum, Milan. I believe that he was also responsible for some very fine heads in silverpoint, which are amongst the most popular works of the Milanese School; and in fact his silverpoint drawings are more than once mentioned in Leonardo’s notes. It is reasonable to suppose that Leonardo, occupied in multifarious commissions for the Sforzas, allowed this promising youth to complete work from his designs, and that under his guidance the pupil achieved a delicacy absent from his later, independent work.

  Some such hypothesis has been used to explain the authorship of the portrait in the Louvre, known as La Belle Ferronnière. This title, the nickname of one of Henry II’s mistresses, is due solely to a confusion in an early inventory, and the sitter’s identity has never been established. The portrait has been frequently claimed as the portrait of Lucrezia Crivelli, who in 1495 succeeded Cecilia Gallerani as the mistress of Ludovico il Moro. Leonardo undoubtedly painted a portrait of this lady which is recorded in three epigrams, and if the Louvre picture represents her (for which there is not the least evidence) it must be by his own hand. This has long been doubted. Mr. Berenson expressed the feeling of all students of Leonardo towards this picture when he noted in the 1907 edition of his North Italian painters ‘one would regret to have to accept this as Leonardo’s own work’.{20} Could Leonardo have been content with such a commonplace pose? Not only is the relationship of head and shoulders uninteresting, but the head itself is turned to the light in such a way as to deprive it of half its plastic possibilities. Compared to the Turin drawing of an angel’s head, it looks almost as tame as a Costa. An obvious defect is the insensitive drawing of the snood and necklaces, which do nothing to indicate the modelling; but it must be remembered that there was a strong tradition in Milanese portraiture by which dress and jewellery were treated with an almost heraldic stiffness, and certain details of the Belle Ferronnière’s costume, notably the ribbons on her shoulder, are remarkably close to Leonardo. The face, too, has great beauty of modelling, easily appreciated when the numerous copies of the Louvre picture are compared with the original, and photographic enlargements of her features show the extraordinary knowledge of structure with which they are drawn. No one who prefers truth to finality should be dogmatic about the Belle Ferronnière, but I am now inclined to think that the picture is by Leonardo, and shows how in these years he was willing to subdue his genius to the needs of the court.

  The other portrait in question is the well-known profile of a lady in the Ambrosiana. This is certainly not by Leonardo, and has been long attributed to Ambrogio da Predis, chiefly for the reason that the sitter is in profile. It is of very much higher quality than the only certain works by Predis; yet the underlying character, stiff, cold, and thin, is connected with him through a series of other profiles which, at their worst, resemble his authentic work. If the lady in the Ambrosiana is by Predis, it must have been painted under the immediate inspiration of Leonardo, who may even have touched some of the details of the head-dress, pearls, and ribbons, painted with unusual skill. We thus have the curious situation that although the documents of the time imply that Predis’s relation to Leonardo was that of a senior partner or even contractor, the evidence of style suggests that he was Leonardo’s pupil. The dual relationship is not impossible. Predis had an established position before Leonardo came to Milan, and may have continued to be more acceptable to conservative patrons; but as Leonardo’s superior accomplishments increased his favour at court, Predis may have decided to learn from him what he could. In this inspiring atmosphere he succeeded in painting the portrait of Bartolommeo Archinto in the National Gallery which bears a monogram AMPRE and the date 1494, which, with the profile in the Ambrosiana, is his finest achievement. We must suppose that when Leonardo was no longer there to help him Predis’s skill declined, so that in 1502 he could produce the feeble portrait of the Emperor Maximilian in the Vienna gallery which, out of pride in his sitter’s greatness, he elected to sign.

  Although some such hypothesis can be made to account for Ambrogio da Predis, the Milanese School during the years of Leonardo’s residence remains completely mysterious. We should come nearer to understanding it if we could name the author of a famous picture in the Brera, the so-called Pala Sforzesca of 1495, in which Ludovico Sforza, his wife and children are presented to the Virgin and Child; for there we see the first repercussions of Leonardo’s style on the old Lombard manner. But this picture, and practically all the portraits and drawings associated with it, are nameless. On the other hand there are records in Leonardo’s notebooks of pupils whose names we cannot associate with a single picture. Only one of these pupils need be mentioned here, not because his work survived or ever had any merit, but because he played an important part in Leonardo’s life. This was Giacomo Salai. Vasari tells us that ‘while in Milan he took for his servant Salai, a Milanese, who was most comely in grace and beauty, having fair locks abundant and curly, in which Leonardo much delighted’, and Leonardo himself has recorded in MS. C the precise date of this event. ‘Giacomo came to live with me on St. Mary Magdalene’s day (22 July) 1490, aged ten years. The second day I had two shirts cut out for him, a pair of hose, and a jerkin, and when I put aside some money to pay for these things he stole the money (4 lire) out of the purse; and I could never make him confess although I was quite certain of it. The day after I went to sup with Giacomo Andrea, and the said Giacomo supped for two and did mischief for four, for he broke three cruets and spilled the wine.’ And then in the margin, ladro, bugiardo, ostinato, ghiotto—thief, liar, obstinate, glutton. There follow many other accounts of Salai’s misdemeanours: how he stole silverpoints from Boltraffio and Marco d’Oggiono, stole money from Messer Gallazzo’s servants, sold a piece of Leonardo’s leather to a cobbler and spent the money on sweets flavoured with anise. As he began, so he continued, stealing, stuffing, Kong, so that Leonardo had difficulty in keeping him out of prison. From Leonardo’s drawings we can see the effect of these activities on Salai’s face. The pretty boy with curling ringlets grows fatter and coarser and more complacent (P. 147). In spite of all this, however, Leonardo never gave him up; on the contrary, arranged a dowry for his sister, and mentioned him in his will.

  These facts, and the character of the drawings of Salai, inevitably suggest that his relation with his master was of the kind honoured in classical times, and partly tolerated in the Renaissance, in spite of the censure of the Church. There is, in fact, concrete evidence that Leonardo’s contemporaries believed him to be homosexual. In 1476 complaints were twice laid before the magistracy in Florence that he and several other young artists had been guilty of misdemeanours with a certain Jacopo Saltarelli, and, although the accusation does not seem to have been proved, it cannot be passed over as being
no more than a malicious rumour.{21} To my mind the proof of Leonardo’s homosexuality need not depend upon a rather sordid document. It is implicit in a large section of his work, and accounts for his androgynous types and a kind of lassitude of form which any sensitive observer can see and interpret for himself. It also accounts for facts which are otherwise hard to explain, his foppishness in dress combined with his remoteness and secrecy, and the almost total absence, in his voluminous writings, of any mention of a woman. Perhaps we may say that it explains the element of frustration which even those who are most conscious of his greatness are bound to admit. I would not press too far into a matter which is more the domain of the psychologist than the art critic, but I cannot omit it from an honest survey of Leonardo as an artist because it colours his outlook in a way that the same characteristic in other great men does not always do. We cannot look at Leonardo’s work and seriously maintain that he had the normal man’s feelings for women. And those who wish, in the interests of morality, to reduce Leonardo, that inexhaustible source of creative power, to a neutral or sexless agency, have a strange idea of doing service to his reputation.