DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51585#0024
20
EAKLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.
cartoon we shall have more to say in treating of his
life. The preference was given to Lionardo da
Vinci. But, as Vasari relates, he spent so much
time in trying experiments, and in preparing the
wall to receive oil-painting, which he preferred to
fresco, that in the interval some changes in the
government intervened, and the design was aban-
doned. The two cartoons remained for several
years open to the public, and artists flocked from
every part of Italy to study them. Subsequently
they were cut up into separate parts, dispersed, and
lost. It is curious that of Michael Angelo’s com-
position only one small copy exists ; of Lionardo’s,
not one. From a fragment which existed in his
time, but which has since disappeared, Rubens made
a fine drawing, which was engraved by Edelinck,
and is known as the Battle of the Standard.
It was a reproach against Lionardo, in his own
time, that he began many things and finished few;
that his magnificent designs and projects, whether
in art or mechanics, were seldom completed. This
may be a subject of regret, but it is unjust to make
it a reproach. It was in the nature of the man.
The grasp of his mind was so nearly superhuman,
that he never, in anything he effected, satisfied him-
self or realized his own vast conceptions. The
most exquisitely finished of his works, those that in
the perfection of the execution have excited the
wonder and despair of succeeding artists, were put
EAKLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.
cartoon we shall have more to say in treating of his
life. The preference was given to Lionardo da
Vinci. But, as Vasari relates, he spent so much
time in trying experiments, and in preparing the
wall to receive oil-painting, which he preferred to
fresco, that in the interval some changes in the
government intervened, and the design was aban-
doned. The two cartoons remained for several
years open to the public, and artists flocked from
every part of Italy to study them. Subsequently
they were cut up into separate parts, dispersed, and
lost. It is curious that of Michael Angelo’s com-
position only one small copy exists ; of Lionardo’s,
not one. From a fragment which existed in his
time, but which has since disappeared, Rubens made
a fine drawing, which was engraved by Edelinck,
and is known as the Battle of the Standard.
It was a reproach against Lionardo, in his own
time, that he began many things and finished few;
that his magnificent designs and projects, whether
in art or mechanics, were seldom completed. This
may be a subject of regret, but it is unjust to make
it a reproach. It was in the nature of the man.
The grasp of his mind was so nearly superhuman,
that he never, in anything he effected, satisfied him-
self or realized his own vast conceptions. The
most exquisitely finished of his works, those that in
the perfection of the execution have excited the
wonder and despair of succeeding artists, were put