1920] Leonardo da Vinci 111 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, March 19, 1920. 



Colonel E. H. Hills, C.M.G. D.Sc. F.R.S., Secretary and 

 Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Edward McCurdy, M.A. 

 Leonardo da Vinci. 



AMONG the greater names in the history of Italian art some are 

 found to be pivotal by reason of the influence of their work upon 

 that of other artists. Giotto and Masaccio are the most conspicuous 

 instances among the earlier masters. In refinement and grace and 

 that mysterious element of symbolism which causes the imagination 

 to be led captive from the seen to the unseen, Giotto is manifestly 

 inferior to certain of the Sienese and such Florentines as Orcagna, 

 who represents the semi-Byzantine succession. His greatness 

 consists in his naturalness and realism. He was the first to discover 

 that, as Ruskin has said, the Holy Family was " just Papa, Mamma, 

 and the Baby." Having discerned this, he set himself to represent 

 the attitudes which persons so related would naturally occupy one to 

 another, and consequently in the inter-relation of characters on the 

 basis of natural association and in study of structure necessary to 

 give due effect to this inter-relation he created the scientific basis of 

 the naturalism of the art of the Renaissance by contrast with the 

 decorative symbolism of the earlier art of Byzantium. 



Masaccio reinforced these tenets with noteworthy access of 

 realism in the frescoes in the Church of the Carmine in Florence. 

 In the figures of Adam and Eve in the Expulsion from Paradise 

 every detail is in entire harmony with the dramatic impulse of the 

 motive. Masaccio's work served as an example to all later Florentine 

 art, and the greatest masters of the Quattrocento and Cinquecento 

 were all students of his method. 



The names of Antonio Pollainolo and Andrea Verrocchio serve 

 to indicate how in Florentine art of the Quattrocento the study of 

 structure gained new scientific precision from anatomical research. 



Piero de' Franceschi reveals a deeper knowledge of the various 

 problems of perspective, arrangement, and light and shade in his 

 works at Arezzo than was possessed by any of his contemporaries, 

 but the influence which his work would naturally exert was restricted 

 by reason of its remoteness from the greater centres of art training. 

 The divergent aims of this small band, who may be termed the 



