ITALIAN PAINTING IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
We have now reached that period in the history of Italian painting— the early part of the sixteenth century—which is dominated by those three men of genius Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo, who tower so pre-eminently above their contemporaries. With them the art of the Renais.ance took on a new form—a form which was the last stage in its development—after sterility or mediocrity was to reign. These great men «err masters of the science and methods attained and developed during the preceding pLriod, and these they employed in the service of their artistic genius.
Leonardo der I (1452-1519) was one of the last of those remarkable artists whose talents sculled universal—sculptors in marble and metal, painters, mosaicists, engineers, architects. His scientific attainments were equal to his artistic achievements. In his paintings Leonardo impresses by the power of character which he expresses in his heads and by the dramatic feeling of Ins compositions.
The most famous of Leonardo's works is the Last Supper (pl. 32, 1), in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, at Milan: it has, unfortunately, been so badly injured as to leave but little of the original except the design. As a composition it is admirable for the symmetry with which the groups are divided and arranged and the outermost figures brought into connection with the centre. Each of the disciples is realistic in character, vet noble in type. Though the expression and gestures of each arc characteristic, all reflect the single impression made by the words which Christ has just spoken: "One of you shall betray me." Like a thunderbolt this saying has thrilled through all, and the feeling to which each gives passionate utterance sweeps around the disciples, like an invisible line binding them in sympathetic groups of three whose central point is the Saviour himself, the source and focus of their emotion. A good or an evil conscience, anguish, grief rising into horror, the blaze of wrath, surprise, questioning, the workings of the soul, and the impulse to action, arc all expressed, not merely in the faces of the different disciples, but in their whole bearing, and particularly in the gestures of their hands. Those who are farthest from the Saviour
reach and point most eagerly toward the centre where he sits, calm, mild, and self-poised amid the excitement which surges around him.
The most characteristic of Leonardo's works as a class are his female portraits. Ile is unrivalled in the portrayal of that refinedly sensual beauty which one admires, yet feels to be as dangerous and fatal as the bite of a venomous serpent. Another phase of his talent is that class of his drawings in which lie shows what a study lie made of deformity in all its shapes, and how he loved it. A study of Leonardo cannot fail to leave a strong impression of his weird, strange power, which is stamped so clearly on his broad brow and powerful head.
.1fichelang-do Buonarrai (1.175-1564).—While Leonardo's genius is not so well known to us because of the small number of his monumental works, the equally powerful figure of Michelangelo is familiar to all. During his remarkably long and fruitful career lie exercised an influence over his contemporaries, and this influence continued for several genera tions. While none of his works show any religious inspiration—nor can classicism be said to predominate in them—his personality impressed itself so strongly on all his creations as to make it impossible to asso ciate him with any other movement.
His is the series of frescos in the Sistine Chapel, in the Vatican. On one end-wall the Las/ Judgment is depicted, but his frescos on the ceiling are a far nobler achievement. In these latter Michelangelo showed that his genius was eminently sculpturesque. The entire ceiling is divided into sections by a painted framework of arches and columns, on the various parts of which are placed nude figures so wonderfully painted as to seem statues standing, reclining, or seated.