International studio (31.1907)

Book Reviews


Copyright, 1906, by’Liltle, Brown & Co.
FLAT ROOFED
ARBOUR

ILLUSTRATION FROM
“THE GARDEN AND ITS accessories’
BY LORING UNDERWOOD

Renaissance. He contributes an appropriate and
just word of enthusiasm for the versatile Leonardo
by way of introduction. Disputed details and the
usual apparatus of the academic preface are passed
aside. The Syrian episode, for instance, is men-
tioned not as a possibility but an abandoned plan.
The relations of the painter to the Renaissance in
Italy are put with point. In an appended biblio-
graphic note the editor mentions Dr. Solmi’s volume
of selections (Florence, 1900) as a basis for the text
of the present English translation. But these wri-
tings have seen the light only within the last thirty
years, many in less time. The Accademia dei
Lincei are still publishing the Codice Atlantico. In
English Richter’s two-volume translation (London,
1883) is all we have had of importance hitherto. So
that there is every reason to assume that the wri-
tings, fragmentary, too, as they are, remain unknown
to many persons who would gladly avail themselves
of this publication.
In the notes grouped as “Thoughts on Life” ap-
pear some most interesting instances of Leonardo’s
keen and inquisitive observation. One curious hint
of a withheld engineering secret would seem to
presage the submarine boat. His analogies be-
tween the motion in walking of arms and legs and
the motion of forelegs and hindlegs, his classing, in
one place, of babies with four-footed animals and

his reference to
monkeys and apes
as of almost the
same species as
man, show a sym-
pathy with Dar-
winian conclu-
sions. The psy-
chological puzzle
in the definition
of the brain piqued
his curiosity. He
sets down an in-
termediary “ per-
ception” acting
between sensory
transmission and
the “brain,”
which in turn acts
on the memory.
The notion of the
memory as a store-
house of experi-
ences has been by
no means popu-
larly outgrown
even to-day. The eye fascinated Leonardo. He
observes it acutely under many conditions. Some
of his conclusions about it are found also in the
section, “ Thoughts on Science,” which is, however,
largely occupied with theories about sun, moon and
stars comprehended in terms of the elements, earth,
water, air and fire.
Much of the “ Thoughts on Art ” belongs now in
the lumber room of aesthetics. But they show the
remarkable restlessness of a creative mind that
could not choose but employ itself in investigation
and inquiry. Of course he insists on being guilty of
the great forensic sin of proving too much. But
what a busy head ! If the tradition of his presiding
over an academy in Milan has no foundation, it has
plainly an excuse. A most interesting passage is
his exposition of an inferiority in sculpture as com-
pared to painting, based on his own experience in
both arts. But instances can be multiplied too
easily. This is a book which no one who has won-
dered at the smile of the Mona Lisa will fail to find
of great interest; for in it is set down, quite simply
for the most part, the personality of an uncommon
thinker.
The Garden and Its Accessories. By Loring
Underwood. With Explanatory Illustrations
from Photographs by the Author and Others.

LIV