The Painter's Art [pp. 313-324]

THE PAINTRR'S ART.
conventional traits, altho the art was being rapidly freed from
them. In chiaroscuro and perspective, more particularly, little
progress was made. Pietro della Francesca, who lived at the
close of the fifteenth century, was the first who revived the
Grecian practice of rendering geometry subservient to the
painter. He rediscovered the science of perspective, which had
been totally lost. The Pompeiian frescos show with what perfection it was practised by the ancients, but all knowledge of it
had totally expired until revived by Francesca. Brunelleschi,
an architect of great skill, who raised the dome of the cathedral
at Florence, was one of the earliest to discover the method of
perfecting this science; but it was reserved for Paolo Uccello,
assisted by the mathematician Manetti, to reduce it to rules and
render it available for the painter. As lineal perspective enables
the painter to hollow fictitious depths on a smooth surface, and
represent receding objects and spaces accurately, as they would
appear to the eye, we may see what an important contribution
this knowledge was toward perfecting the art. Hitherto the
figures were distributed over the picture without distinction of
planes, not unlike the present practice of Chinese art.
It was reserved for Leonardo da Vinci to perfect the arrangement of the lights and shadows in a picture comprehended
in the term chiaroscuro, which was afterwards brought to still
higher perfection with greater scope by Rembrandt. Leonardo
was the early pupil of the sculptor Verocchio, and while under
his tuition he conceived the practice of modelling clay statuettes
of the figures he contemplated painting in his pictures. These
he draped with wet linen, and in drawing from them he imitated
their relief. He thus imbibed the sentiment of solid substance,
and carried this sentiment into painting. He worked with great
patience, ever aiming at perfection, and producing but few pictures; spending, it is said, four years on a single portrait, that
known as the "Mona Liza," and leaving it still unfinished.
Leonardo was continuously meditating upon the means of perfecting his art. At Milan he remained for some years engaged
in abstruse studies, and during this time he painted but little,
occupying himself with presiding over an academy of the fine arts.
But he left, it is said, a degree of refinement in Milan so productive of illustrious pupils that this period may be regarded as
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