BOOKS OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2612, 6 November 1915, Page 9

BOOKS OF THE DAY.

THE ADMIRABLE PAINTER.

Under the title of "Tho Admirable Painter,V a study 1 of Leonardo da Vinci (Stanley Paul), Mr. A. J. Anderson, ■well known as ono of. the foremost ot British art critics, having a specially deep knowledge of tho ,art of the Italian Renaissance, has written a biographical and critical study of tho' great .Florentine painter, much on the same lines as tho author'B previous books, "The Romanco of Fra Filippo Lippi" and "The Romance of ;Sanctro Botticelli." Tho now famous theft of Leonardo's masterpiece, "Moiina Lisa," from tho Louvre has made tho great Florentine's name familiar even to tho man in the street,' whoso interest in- art, more especially tho art of the Old Masters, is not as a rule ; very keen.. Leonardo was not merely a groat painter. Ho was an all-round genius, the originality, courage, and brilliancy' of whoseideas quite outside the realms of' that art-he so profoundly loved and practised ■with such superb talent, would have inado him famous in any country'and any ago. For the painter whose "Monna Lisa" s is. in the Louvre, whose "Annunciation". is ono of the greatest treasures of the Ufizzi Gallery in Florence, who painted that glorious fresco picture "Tho Last Supper" .(now, alas,, slowly but -surely decaying on the walls of the refectory of a ' Milanese church), and whoso -splendid • command of both draftsmanship and ■ colour yis again so well exemplified in his -'Virgin of the Rocks," one of the most, treasured possessions of the National Gallery in London, well deserved being called "A Conglomerate of all tho Talents," which was how his princely patron, ■ Lorenzo the Magnificent, is said to have styled liim. ■~ ' ..■''.

11l addition to being a painter, lie was ft- scientist) an architect,, a sculptor, n. musician, a military engineer, an inventor, who at least perceived and drew attention-to the germs of many- socalled modern discoveries. He would leave his easel and liis models for months, even years, at a time, as when ho was appointed engineer to the Devadar of Syria, and went, to . Armenia, whence he- wrote .his famous letters on the people of tho Caucasus. Nothing came amiss to him. He would.discourse on • the evil of swaddling-bands for babes whose "fearful complaints none understood"; ho could advise on the construction of war galleys, could argue, in an age which fairly fed on superstitions, thai ghosts were nonexistent, on the ground that "if they were oxistent they would imply a vacuum in Nature, ancl are impossible.''' We' read of him playing on a silver lute made by himself in the shape of a horse's head, according : to laws 'of acoustios he himself had discovered. He is credited with'having invented flying machines, of hiving foreshadowed steamboats, he was a deep student of optics, and believed in "the infinite divisibility of matter." His "Note Books" are full; of proof that his mind was immeasurably superior to the gross belief and superstitions of his age. This feverish search after knowledge in so. many this. desire to - shine -alike as scientist, engineer, musician, and inventor, as well as artist,, had ~no doubt much to-do with his unfortunate-trick of leaving so many of . his finest pintings only half-finished. .Versatility-is'I all very well, but if a, painter is to bequeath any .very solid . bulk ' of.'.'fine achievement to. succeeding generations he must pay undivided devotion fo' his jealous mistress, Art. And so it is that Leonardo de Vinci is but poorly represented, in point of bulk, in the great art galleries of,, Europe. ■. Such work, as lias survived the ravages of Time, and such bad luck as that which befell his fresco painting, "The Last Supper," which was so badly, damaged by ..Napoleon's soldiers who stabled their horses in the refectory of Sa-iita Maria dfilla Grazie, at Milan, will ever stand out prominently in the art of the world. It was his special gift to express "the snblety of life in the painted flesh." IWho that has had the good fortune-to see his "Head of Christ" in one of the Milan galleries—a study for the figure of Christ in the same "Last Supper"—or has studied the enigmatical beauty of the Morula Lisa in the Louvre—that beauty which was described :by Walter Pater as a ' "beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, tho deposit, little cell by.. cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions," has hot realised the subtle charm of fascinating mystery which is presented by the magic of the painter's brush. It is of Leonardo the artist 'that Mr. Anderson has most to say in his ingeniously devised story, at onoe a biography, and a critical Etudy. , . '

The author is singularly successful in reconstituting for hi? readers the world of Florence as it was, in tho days of the Medici. He tells us of. Verrochio, who was Leonardo's master, and who, upon-his pupil painting in an'angel on his teacher's picture, "The Baptism of Christ," _ straightway declared that he (Verrochio) had no more to teach such a pupil, and vowed, so the story goes, that he himself would never take brash in hand again. Tho author pictures for us the young village; lad, horn in the little hill; village 1 of . Vinci, the natural son of ,a local notary, coming to the great city on the Arno and fairly compelling its esteem and even worship by the force of his talents, his handsome face, his Herculean strength—could ho not break an iron horseshoe between his ' fingers I—his1 —his majiy-sided genius. , Ho tells us how Leonardo loved and won his wife, and how he worked for the Medici, how he flitted away to other courts —to Milan, and to far away France. For Leonardo was a special favourite of Francis, and ,at . the old Touraine Castle of Amboise "Liber" has been shown the room where worked the great FMrentine, and whence that scientific and mathematical side of his mind, nover to bo repressed, is said to havo evolved from tho winding course of the Loire what was then an entirely new theory as to the repetition of curves.

Mr. 1 " Anderson puts to skilful uso old Florentine legends, and has gone also to Leonardo's own "Note Books" for tho material'he employs ill the imaginary conversations in which he makes his hero and his brother, artists indulge. Tho result is,a very readable as'well as a very instructive book, a notablo and most agreeable feature of the volume being the numerous full-page reproductions of Leonardo's most famous paintings, and a long series of equally interesting illustrations from tho axtist's drawings, in various European art galleries and museum. Books such as this and its predecessors on Lippi and Botticelli should find a place in ■every public library, and would bo suitable also for all colleges and secondary schools, where art has a place in tibo curriculum. (N!Z. price 125.).

John Galsworthy's now novel, "The Freelands" is gotting very good reviews in both the English and American papers. . So far, the book has not reached the Now Zealand bookshops, but tho H6inemanns will probably publish tho usual colonial edition