DA VINCI’S IDEA OF PERFECTION IN ART.

Da Vinci was never satisfied with his works, and Lanzi finds the same fault with him that Apelles did with Protogenes—his not knowing when to take his hand from his work. Phidias himself, says Tully, bore in his mind a more beautiful Minerva and a grander Jove than he was capable of exhibiting with his chisel. It is prudent counsel that teaches us to aspire to the best, but to rest satisfied with attaining what is good. “Vinci,” says Lanzi, “was never satisfied with his labors, if he did not execute them as perfectly as he had conceived them; and being unable to reach the high point proposed with a mortal hand, he sometimes only designed his work, or conducted it only to a certain degree of completion. Sometimes he devoted to it so long a period as almost to renew the example of the ancient who employed seven years over his picture (Protogenes’ Ialysus and his Dog). But as there was no limit to the discovery of fresh beauties in that work, so in the opinion of Lomazzo it happens with the perfections of Vinci’s paintings, including even those which Vasari and others allude to as left imperfect.” Lanzi says it is certain that he left some of his works only half finished. “Such is his Epiphany, in the Ducal Gallery at Florence, and his Holy Family, in the Archbishop’s palace at Milan.” Others he finished in the most exquisite manner. “He was not satisfied with only perfecting the heads, counterfeiting the shining of the eyes, the pores of the skin, the roots of the hair, and even the beating of the arteries; but he likewise portrayed each separate garment, and every accessory, with equal minuteness. Thus in his landscapes, also, there was not a single herb, or leaf of a tree, which he had not taken, like a portrait, from the face of nature; and even to his very leaves he gave a peculiar air, fold, and position best adapted to represent their rustling in the wind. While he bestowed his attention in this manner to minutiæ, he at the same time, as is observed by Mengs, led the way to a more enlarged and dignified style; entered into the most abstruse inquiries as to the source and nature of expression—the most philosophical and elevated branch of the art—and smoothed the way for the appearance of Raffaelle.” Vinci spent four years on his portrait of Mona Lisa Giocondo.