No artist or friend of art will leave unread the account of how he managed the details, how he thought out the characters of the faces and their expression, and even the motions of the hands, and how he represented them. In the same manner he thinks out the dishes, the room, the back-ground, and shows that he has not decided upon any part without the strongest reasons. What care he takes about representing the feet under the table in correct attitudes, because this portion of the original had long been destroyed, and in the copies had been carelessly treated!
Of the relation of the two copies—the merits of the third can be shown only to the eye, not to the mind in words—we shall state in a few words the most essential and most decided points, until we shall be fortunate enough, as we shall perhaps one day be, to be able to lay copies of these interesting sheets before the friends of art.
COMPARISON.
St. Bartholomew, manly youth, sharp profile, compressed, clear face, eyelid and brow pressed down, mouth closed, as if listening with suspicion, a character completely circumscribed within itself. In Vespino’s copy no trace of individual characteristic features, a general kind of drawing-book face, listening with open mouth. Vossi has approved of this opening of the lips, and retained it, a procedure to which we should be unable to lend our assent.
St. James the younger, likewise profile, relationship to Christ unmistakable, receives from the protruded, slightly opened lips, something individual, which again cancels this similarity. According to Vespino, almost an ordinary, academical Christ, the mouth opened rather in astonishment than in inquiry. Our assertion that Bartholomew must have his mouth closed, receives support from the fact that his neighbor has his mouth open. Such a repetition Leonardo would never have endured; on the contrary, the next figure,
St. Andrew has his mouth shut. Like persons advanced in life, he presses the lower lip rather against the upper. In the copy of Marco, this head has something peculiar, not to be expressed in words; the eyes are introverted; the mouth, though shut, is still naïve. The outline of the left side against the back ground forms a beautiful silhouette; enough of the other side of the forehead (eye, nose and beard) is seen to give the head a roundness and a peculiar life; on the contrary, Vespino suppresses the left eye altogether, but shows so much of the left temple and of the side of the beard as to produce in the uplifted face a full bold expression, which is indeed striking, but which would seem more suitable to clenched fists than to open hands stretched forward.
Judas locked up within himself, frightened, looking anxiously up and back, profile strongly dented, not exaggerated, by no means an ugly formation; for good taste would not tolerate any real monster in the proximity of pure and upright men. Vespino, on the other hand, has actually represented such a monster, and it cannot be denied that, regarded by itself, this head has much merit; it expresses vividly a mischievously bold malignity, and would make itself eminently conspicuous in a mob triumphing over an Ecce Homo, and crying out “Crucify! crucify!” It might be made to pass for Mephistopheles in his most devilish moment. But of affright or dread, combined with dissimulation, indifference and contempt, there is not a trace; the bristly hair fits in with the tout ensemble admirably; its exaggeration, however, is matched only by the force and violence of the rest of Vespino’s heads.
St. Peter.—Very problematical features. Even in Marco, it is merely an expression of pain; of wrath or menace there is no sign; there is also a certain anxiety expressed, and here Leonardo may not have been at one even with himself; for cordial sympathy with a beloved master, and threatening against a traitor, are with difficulty united in one countenance. Nevertheless, Cardinal Borromeo asserts that he saw such a miracle in his time. However pleasant it might be to believe this, we have reason to suppose that the art-loving cardinal expressed his own feeling rather than what was in the picture; for otherwise we should be unable to defend our friend Vespino, whose Peter has an unpleasant expression. He looks like a stern Capuchin monk, whose Lent sermon is intended to rouse sinners. It is strange that Vespino has given him bushy hair, since the Peter of Marco shows a beautiful head of short, curled tresses.
St. John is represented by Marco in the spirit of Da Vinci; the beautiful roundish face, somewhat inclined to oval, the hair smooth towards the top of the head, but curling gently downwards, particularly where it bends round Peter’s inserted hand, are most lovely; what we see of the dark of the eye is turned away from Peter—a marvellously fine piece of observation, in that while he is listening with the intensest feeling to the secret speech of his neighbor, he turns away his eyes from him. According to Vespino, he is a comfortable-looking, quiet, almost sleepy youth, without any trace of sympathy.