DEVELOPMENT OF THE HISTORY OF ART 585 



collection of Francis I, in whose service Leonardo worked and died. 

 In the king's lifetime it was considered a Leonardo; and it is not prob- 

 able that Francis would be deceived about it. The tradition has 

 come on down to the present time and is believable. Unfortunately, 

 however, the "Madonna of the Rocks" is not in Leonardo's best 

 manner: ergo, he did not do it at all. That, on the principle that 

 the king can do no wrong, and that Homer never nods, whereas we 

 know that all Homers do nod occasionally, and that the greatest 

 painters sometimes do poor work. 



However, the inferior work does militate against the tradition of 

 this Madonna picture, just as Giotto's sheep discredit Ghiberti's story 

 about Giotto. For it cannot be denied that the internal evidence of 

 the work of art itself is the best evidence of all. There the newer crit- 

 icism is well based and deserving of all praise. Yet because the ana- 

 lysis of a picture or a marble is the safest of all methods, it is perhaps 

 the one that is the most often put in peril. It is so easy to determine, 

 almost at a glance, the national and provincial characteristics of a 

 work so easy to locate an unknown marble or picture in its century, 

 school, town, and almost workshop that the attribution to a certain 

 artist is often jumped at with equal ease and haste. But the diffi- 

 culty is enormously increased as the hunt draws to a close. When the 

 style, spirit, technique, type, mannerisms, and characteristics of, 

 say, an altar-piece are so marked that you locate it in the workshop 

 of Bellini or Perugino or Costa, your search has but begun. You 

 are now brought to consider the possibilities of pupils, imitators, 

 copyists, even forgers. And the last are not so despicable. There 

 was a clever rascal recently at work in Siena, who has deceived the 

 very elect with his forgeries of old Sienese pictures; and we all 

 know how forgeries of Corot and Dupre have led astray the Paris 

 experts for many years. But forgeries aside, there are the genuine 

 pictures of pupils and imitators that show the master's mannerisms 

 and characteristics to the very life. No one is too cunning to be 

 deceived by them. Botticini is sometimes read into Botticelli, and 

 I have no doubt that sometimes Botticelli is back of the label 

 Botticini. Great caution is necessary, and in the end the final test 

 is hardly scientific at all. It is brought about by an appeal to the 

 quality of the picture the quality of drawing, contour, light- 

 and-shade. color. The questions are formulated. " Is the line of that 

 firm quality, that lightness of touch here and emphasis there, worthy 

 of Raphael? " " Has that light-and-shade a subtlety and depth and 

 gradation worthy of Leonardo? " Does that color-note ring true to 

 Titian? " In other words, it is by its quality that one should say 

 whether he has in hand a piece of silk or a piece of gingham, and by 

 a similar test he should be able to tell a work of a master from that 

 of an imitator, a copyist, or a forger. But this brings in the person- 



