Charles Ricketts would write twice about Leonardo da Vinci for The Vasari Society, having previously discussed his work in his two books The Prado and Its Masterpieces and Titian. However, in these monographs, Leonardo's name is only mentioned in passing, in comparison to other painters such as Titian:
In the painting of the eyes and flesh of the little faun in the 'Bacchus and Ariadne,' the glazes have been softened with the finger tips - this softening process was also practised by Leonardo.(Titian, 1910, p. 166)
For Part III of the Second Series (1922) of The Vasari Society Ricketts wrote three comments on sketches by Leonardo da Vinci for the 'Madonna del Gatto', two studies of the Virgin and Christ Child with a cat in the collection of the British Museum and one in the collection of Arthur Hungerford Pollen.
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Leonardo da Vinci, sketches for 'The Madonna of the Cat'
At the top: Recto; Below: verso
[Collection British Museum] |
The first two were on the recto and verso of one leaf, both pen and wash drawings. The Vasari series first depicts the drawing of the verso (No. 3) and then the recto (No. 4). Ricketts wrote:
In the year 1478 Leonardo began two pictures of the Virgin Mary. One of these has been identified with the Madonna del Fiore, preserved in a damaged condition in Petrograd; the second, the 'Madonna del Gatto', has been lost. Closely allied studies for both pictures are preserved in London, Paris, Florence, and in the Bonnat Collection. The two sketches, here reproduced, No. 4 [recto], with the indication of a window in the background, is so close in conception to the 'Madonna del Fiore' that it may be considered as a study in the evolution of both these early pictures alike. In the drawing No. 3 [verso], which is in part traced through, Leonardo is striving to break with the formality of design of the Petrograd picture, and the simple interrelation of the mother and child of the Madonna del Fiore is replaced by greater movement and a more complex and rhythmic sense of line and mass.
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Leonardo da Vinci, 'Madonna with Child and Cat'
[private collection]
[See Wikipedia] |
Ricketts wrote about the third sketch, which was then in a private collection in London and is now in New York:
This study bearing on the 'Madonna del Gatto' is more Leonardesque in workmanship and invention than the two already described. All traces of the Verrocchio atelier have vanished; in some respects it is even more mature than the Louvre design for the Adoration of the Magi. The girlish head, the bosom still placed high, would help, however, to class this drawing not later than the early 'eighties'. In may show the final pose chosen for the Madonna del Gatto; it may also be a somewhat later improvisation on the same theme which we shall find taken up again, later still, in the Louvre sketch for the cartoon of the Virgin and St. Anne, where the cat is replaced by a lamb.
Such was his admiration for Leonardo that he attributed a drawing in his and Shannon's possession not to the master, but to Lorenzo di Credi, even though Shannon was certain that it must be a work by Leonardo. In 1914, on the basis of new photographs, he changed his mind, saying: 'So Shannon is right and I was wrong'. Later, however, the drawing was attributed, perhaps more cautiously, to Andrea del Verrocchio, and nowadays it is considered to be the work of Fra Bartolomeo. So Shannon was also wrong. [See Fitzwilliam Museum].
A fictionalised Leonardo
Ricketts's story 'The Two Peaches' was published in Unrecorded Histories. Thomas Sturge Moore added a dedication to Charles Shannon. The book was published posthumously in 1933. This story revolves around a fictionalised Leonardo da Vinci. We will never know how Ricketts imagined Leonardo, because this is one of two (out of eight) stories in the book that lack an illustration.
In the first paragraph of the story, Ricketts expresses his admiration for the 'Messere' Leonardo da Vinci, who is called 'this incomparable man', and whose painting skills are 'without a rival'. In the second paragraph, Ricketts combines his art historical observations (see the above quotation from Titian on the use of the artist's fingertips) with his sensitive imagination about the painter's work during the Renaissance.
Shortly after dawn, for no one knew when Leonardo chose to wake or sleep, he was examining a picture of Our Lady, St. John and an Angel adoring the Holy Child in a landscape of rocks, on which he had lavished his utmost skill, even softening the texture of the flesh with his finger-tips to imitate the grain of the skin; portions of the design were still unfinished, the completion of a task tempered the fire of his imagination, causing him to abandon many things that were well begun.
(p. 59)
This last observation seems to be based in part on Ricketts's own experience, who was extremely uncertain about his talent as a painter, but this also had historical roots, because Da Vinci's clients demanded side panels, which the artist preferred to leave to local painters.
The painting in question - 'The Virgin on the Rocks' - was well known to Ricketts, as it had been acquired by the National Gallery in London in 1880.
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Leonardo da Vinci, 'The Virgin of the Rocks',
oil on wood, about 1491/2 and 1506/8
[Collection National Gallery, London]
[Creative Commons agreement] |
Ricketts's view of art as an autonomous domain is, as the reader quickly realises, also the view of Leonardo da Vinci:
'Art should be divorced from any consideration but itself,' thought the Master as he covered his work and the offending panels with a cloth to protect them from the dust.
(p. 60)
The story seems to have been written partly to describe the disorderly wealth of a painter's and inventor's studio and secluded garden in listings of various objects. In the sequel, Ricketts describes Da Vinci's experiments with poisoned crocus and peaches, introducing the other inhabitants of the studio: the painter of the panels, the cat, a monkey and his housekeeper. Leonardo dismisses the local painter before receiving a visit from a court lady, a mistress of the Duke, who has to hide between the artefacts in the studio as the latter suddenly appears. While the others, one by one, talk about the uses of poison, Leonardo makes sure they leave the crocus and peaches alone. The Duke likens lovers to artists:
'Do you sometimes tire of your picture as I tire of my women?'
Leonardo smiled rather sadly before saying, 'The desire for artistic perfection is arduous, O Prince; we lovers and artists alike grope for a light hidden from our human darkness... and ... sometimes I feel I am painting on the Night.'
(p. 65)
Incidentally, the Duke needs a gift for the French king, and Da Vinci helps him with this. After the Duke has departed, his mistress turns out to have disappeared as well, while the cat is lying 'among dusty bones'. Leonardo puts away his notebook and the crocus, but cannot find the peach anywhere. It then transpires that his dismissed assistant has given a better pupil a peach, who is now dying. Leonardo rushes to his bedside and hears that he is on the mend, but that Lucrezia, the Duke's wife, has suddenly died. Back in his studio, he wants to gather up all the peaches, but hears that his housekeeper has given the last fruits to his monkey. Fortunately, he sees that the monkey is alive and well in his cage, with the pits of two peaches next to him.
Before the poisonings take place and, apparently thanks to the presence of the painting of 'The Virgin on the Rocks', the cat and monkey are saved from death, Da Vinci works through the night, paying little attention to food or other distractions, occasionally muttering a piece of Ricketts wisdom, such as:
Things mortal pass away, but not art.
(p. 67)
In addition to a high ideal when it comes to art, with a certain disdain for worldly matters - which, incidentally, are elegantly resolved by the painter in a businesslike manner - the story expresses a deep love for animals, more so than for people.
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