United States or Nigeria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Duchesse d'Estampes, we are told, preserved Francis I. from the influence of the Italian renaissance, and prevented the subjugation of France 'by a Benvenuto or Da Vinci'; and in the same way, when Catherine de Médici was preparing to introduce other strange fashions, Diane came forward in her 'magical beauty' and saved the originality of her nation.
Queen Catherine was at that time Dauphine, and to make herself welcome to the king, her father-in-law, who at that time was very ill indeed, presented him, from time to time, with Italian pictures, knowing that he liked them much, being a friend of the Sieur Raphael d'Urbin and of the Sieurs Primatice and Leonardo da Vinci, to whom he sent large sums of money.
In the old refectory of the dilapidated Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, is the work of art, perhaps, better known than any other in the world: the Last Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci with a door cut through it by the intelligent Dominican friars, to facilitate their operations at dinner-time.
Alberti tells us, that 'we ought not so much to love the likeness as the beauty, and to choose from the fairest bodies, severally, the fairest parts. Da Vinci uses almost the same words, and desires the painter to form the idea for himself; and the incomparable Raphael thus writes to Castiglione concerning his Galatea: 'To paint a fair one, it is necessary for me to see many fair ones; but because there is so great a scarcity of lovely women, I am constrained to make use of one certain idea, which I have formed in my own fancy. Guido Reni approaches still closer to the pure ideal of the great Christian School of Painting, when he wishes for the wings of an angel, to ascend to Paradise, and see, with his own eyes, the forms and faces of the blessed spirits, that he might put more of heaven into his pictures.
We find it in the mysticism of Plato and in the rationalism of Aristotle. We find it later in the Italian Renaissance agitating the minds of such men as Leonardo da Vinci. Schiller tried to adjust the balance between form and feeling, and Goethe to estimate the position of self-consciousness in art.
But ideal beauty and harmony in coloring were still wanting, as well as freedom of the pencil. Then arose Da Vinci and Michael Angelo, who practised the immutable principles by which art could be advanced; and rapidly following in their steps, Fra Bartolommeo, Fra Angelico, Rossi, and Andrea del Sarto made the age an era in painting, until the art culminated in Raphael and Corregio and Titian.
Such a world-genius as Albrecht Dürer had his moment of "Melencolia," and what can't you detect in Da Vinci or Michael Angelo if you are overcurious? "Beauty," like that other deadly phrase, "beautiful drawing," is ever the shibboleth of the mediocre, of imitators, in a word, of the academy.
And many of the renaissance painters were interested in the subject, Leonardo da Vinci having much to say about it in his book.
Will you dine in the salon with me, or will you dine in the solemn grandeur of your own cabin, in company with Da Vinci, Teniers, and that Carlo Dolci the Italian Government has been hunting high and low for?" "I will risk the salon." "To keep an eye on me as long as possible. That's fair enough. You heard what I said to those boys. Well, every mother's son of 'em will toe the mark.
The faith that had inspired the long roll of pioneers, from da Vinci onward, was justified at last. Having made their conquest, the brothers took the machine back to camp, and, as they thought, placed it in safety. Talking with the little group of spectators about the flights, they forgot about the machine, and then a sudden gust of wind struck it.
Word Of The Day