Giocondo, gave one of the earliest and best lessons to the age, in the great style, in his memorable painting of the Last Supper. This power of attending at the same moment to the minutiæ of detail, and to the grand and leading principles of the art or science in which a person may be employed, shows a species of universality of power that may be reckoned among the highest perfections of the human mind; and it places Da Vinci not merely in the rank of the first of painters, but of the greatest of men.
DA VINCI'S IDEA OF PERFECTION IN ART.
Da Vinci was never satisfied with his works, and
Lanzi finds the same fault with him that Apelles did
with Protogenes—his not knowing when to take his
hand from his work. Phidias himself, says Tully,
bore in his mind a more beautiful Minerva and a
grander Jove than he was capable of exhibiting
with his chisel. It is prudent counsel that teaches
us to aspire to the best, but to rest satisfied with
attaining what is good. "Vinci," says Lanzi, "was
never satisfied with his labors, if he did not execute
them as perfectly as he had conceived them; and
being unable to reach the high point proposed with
a mortal hand, he sometimes only designed his
work, or conducted it only to a certain degree of
completion. Sometimes he devoted to it so long a
period as almost to renew the example of the ancient
who employed seven years over his picture
