



Produced by Laura Natal Rodrigues & Marc D'Hooghe at Free
Literature (with thanks to ebooks@Adelaide)





DRAWINGS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI

With an introduction by Charles Lewis Hind

LONDON. GEORGE NEWNES LIMITED

SOUTHAMPTON STREET. STRAND WC

NEW YORK. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1907




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                         PLATE
  PROFILE OF A WARRIOR FRONTISPIECE
  PORTRAIT OF ISABELLA D'ESTE                                I
  STUDY OF AN OLD MAN                                        II
  STUDY OF DRAPERIES FOR KNEELING FIGURES                    III
  STUDY OF A BACCHUS                                         IV
  HEAD OF A MAN                                              V
  BATTLE BETWEEN HORSEMEN AND MONSTERS                       VI
  WOMAN SEATED ON GROUND AND CHILD KNEELING                  VII
  STUDIES OF HEADS                                           VIII
  YOUTH ON HORSEBACK                                         IX
  STUDIES FOR THE EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF FRANCESCO SFORZA      X
  THE VIRGIN, ST. ANNE AND INFANT                            XI
  STUDIES OF CHILDREN                                        XII
  THE COMBAT                                                 XIII
  STUDY FOR A MADONNA                                        XIV
  STUDIES FOR "THE HOLY FAMILY"                              XV
  STUDIES FOR "THE LAST SUPPER"                              XVI
  COURTYARD OF A CANNON-FOUNDRY                              XVII
  STUDY OF THE HEAD OF AN APOSTLE                            XVIII
  STUDY FOR BACKGROUND OF "THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI"        XIX
  STUDY OF LANDSCAPE                                         XX
  STUDY OF A TREE                                            XXI
  TWO HEADS CARICATURES                                      XXII
  ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST                                       XXIII
  THE HEAD OF CHRIST                                         XXIV
  CARICATURES                                                XXV
  HEAD OF AN ANGEL                                           XXVI
  STUDY OF A MAN'S HEAD                                      XXVII
  STUDIES OF HANDS                                           XXVIII
  DRAGON FIGHTING WITH A LION                                XXIX
  MAN KNEELING                                               XXX
  PORTRAIT STUDY                                             XXXI
  STUDIES OF ANIMALS                                         XXXII
  PORTRAIT OF LEONARDO, BY HIMSELF                           XXXIII
  SIX HEADS OF MEN AND A BUST OF A WOMAN                     XXXIV
  STUDY OF A HEAD                                            XXXV
  THE ST. ANNE CARTOON                                       XXXVI
  STUDIES OF HORSES                                          XXXVII
  HEADS OF A WOMAN AND A CHILD                               XXXVIII
  STUDY OF DRAPERY FOR A KNEELING FIGURE                     XXXIX
  KNIGHT IN ARMOUR                                           XL
  STUDY OF A YOUTHFUL HEAD                                   XLI
  STUDY FOR "LEDA"                                           XLII
  HEAD OF AN OLD MAN                                         XLIII
  STUDY OF A HEAD                                            XLIV
  STUDY OF THE HEAD OF ST. PHILIP FOR "THE LAST SUPPER"      XLV
  STUDY OF DRAPERY                                           XLVI
  GIRL'S HEAD                                                XLVII
  STUDIES OF A SATYR WITH A LION                             XLVIII




THE DRAWINGS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI BY C. LEWIS HIND


Leonardo da Vinci found in drawing the readiest and most stimulating
way of self-expression. The use of pen and crayon came to him as
naturally as the monologue to an eager and egoistic talker. The outline
designs in his "Treatise on Painting" aid and amplify the text with
a force that is almost unknown in modern illustrated books. Open the
pages at random. Here is a sketch showing "the greatest twist which a
man can make in turning to look at himself behind." The accompanying
text is hardly needed. The drawing supplies all that Leonardo wished to
convey.

Unlike Velasquez, whose authentic drawings are almost negligible, pen,
pencil, silver-point, or chalk were rarely absent from Leonardo’s
hand, and although, in face of the _Monna Lisa_ and _The Virgin of
the Rocks_ and the _St. Anne_, it is an exaggeration to say that he
would have been quite as highly esteemed had none of his work except
the drawings been preserved, it is in the drawings that we realise the
extent of "that continent called Leonardo." The inward-smiling women of
the pictures, that have given Leonardo as painter a place apart in the
painting hierarchy, appear again and again in the drawings. And in the
domain of sculpture, where Leonardo also triumphed, although nothing
modelled by his hand now remains, we read in Vasari of certain "heads
of women smiling."

"His spirit was never at rest," says Antonio Billi, his earliest
biographer, "his mind was ever devising new things." The restlessness
of that profound and soaring mind is nowhere so evident as in the
drawings and in the sketches that illustrate the manuscripts. Nature,
in lavishing so many gifts upon him, perhaps withheld concentration,
although it might be argued that, like