Bernard Berensen, has written of him: "Painting ... was to Leonardo so little of a preoccupation that we must regard it as merely a mode of expression used at moments by a man of universal genius." By which Berensen means us to understand that Leonardo was so brilliant a student and inventor, so versatile, that art was a mere pastime. "No, let us not join in the reproaches made to Leonardo for having painted so little; because he had so much more to do than to paint, he has left all of us heirs to one or two of the supremest works of art ever created."
Another author writes that "in Leonardo da Vinci every talent was combined in one man."
Leonardo was the third person of the wonderful trinity of Florentine painters, Raphael and Michael Angelo being the other two.
He knew so much that he never doubted his own powers, but when he died, after three years in France, he left little behind him, and that little he had ever declared to be unfinished--the "Mona Lisa" and the "Last Supper." He died in the Château de Cloux, at Amboise, and it is said that "sore wept the king when he heard that Leonardo was dead."
In Milan, near the Cathedral, there stands a monument to his memory, and about it are placed the statues of his pupils. To this day he is wonderful among the great men of the world.
PLATE--THE LAST SUPPER
This, as we have said, is in the former convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, in Milan. It was the first painted story of this legendary event in which natural and spontaneous action on the part of all the company was presented.
To-day the picture is nearly ruined by smoke, time, and alterations in the place, for a great door lintel has been cut into the picture. Leonardo used the words of the Christ: "Verily, I say unto you that one of you shall betray me," as the starting point for this painting. It is after the utterance of these words that we see each of the disciples questioning horrified, frightened, anxious, listening, angered--all these emotions being expressed by the face or gestures of the hands or pose of the figures. It is a most wonderful picture and it seems as if the limit of genius was to be found in it.
The company is gathered in a half-dark hall, the heads outlined against the evening light that comes through the windows at the back. We look into a room and seem to behold the greatest tragedy of legendary history: treachery and sorrow and consternation brought to Jesus of Nazareth and his comrades.
This great picture was painted in oil instead of in "distemper," the proper kind of mixture for fresco, and therefore it was bound to be lost in the course of time. Besides, it has known more than ordinary disaster. The troops of Napoleon used this room, the convent refectory, for a stable, and that did not do the painting any good. The reason we have so complete a knowledge of it, however, is that Leonardo's pupils made an endless number of copies of it, and thus it has found its way into thousands of homes. The following is the order in which Leonardo placed the disciples at the table: Jesus of Nazareth in the centre, Bartholomew the last on the left, after him is James, Andrew, Peter, Judas--who holds the money bag--and John. On the right, next to Jesus, comes Thomas, the doubting one; James the Greater, Philip, Matthew, Thaddeus, and Simon. Jesus has just declared that one of them shall betray him, and each in his own way seems to be asking "Lord, is it I?" In the South Kensington Museum in London will be found carefully preserved a description, written out fairly in Leonardo's own hand, to guide him in painting the Last Supper. It is most interesting and we shall quote it: "One, in the act of drinking puts down his glass and turns his head to the speaker. Another twisting his fingers together, turns to his companion, knitting his eyebrows. Another, opening his hands and turning the palm toward the spectator, shrugs his shoulders, his mouth expressing the liveliest surprise. Another whispers in the ear of a companion, who turns to listen, holding in one hand a knife, and in the other a loaf, which he has cut in two. Another, turning around with a knife in his hand, upsets a glass upon the table and looks; another gasps in amazement; another leans forward to look at the speaker, shading his eyes with his hand; another, drawing back behind the one who leans forward, looks into the space between the wall and the stooping disciple."