Bacchus.[1] After comparing unfavourably the smile on the St. John with that of Mona Lisa, Dr. Gronau asserts:—
- 'The smile is somewhat unpleasing in its extravagance. . . . It is too strongly pronounced. But probably the master's hand being crippled by paralysis, he did not put the final touches to the picture, while the pupil could produce the outward effect but not the spirit.'[2]
Dr. Thiis, in the same manner, on this subject, declares:—
- 'In a picture such as St. John the Baptist, in the Louvre, which is closely connected with the ageing Leonardo, but can scarcely have been painted by his own hand, the over-ripeness has already set in, and a tainted flavour accompanies the charm.'[3]
Now let us leave the realms of opinion and conjecture and come down to hard facts. It is admitted on all sides that Leonardo left most of his works unfinished. The only pictures known to have been completed by him before he went to France were the Annunciation, painted when a boy; the Last Supper, under pressure from Ludovico Sforza during his first sojourn in Milan; and the Madonna dell Rocce in the church of St. Francis in Milan, during his second residence there. That he took all his unfinished paintings with him to France is certain from the fact that they eventually were in the collection of Francis I and are now in the Louvre, with the exception of the Leda and the Pomona, that are supposed to have been destroyed while in the King's collection. Therefore, the pictures that arrived at Cloux, nearly all in the first stages of progression, were the St. Anne, the Mona Lisa, the Vièrge aux Rochers, the St. John, the Bacchus, the Leda, and the Pomona. In the first three we have evidence of the master's work, but in two of them, the St. Anne and the Vièrge aux Rochers, some very able authorities believe they recognize the pupil's handiwork as well. The St. John, the Bacchus, the Leda, and the Pomona can, without injustice to any one, be attributed to Melzi, that is, their completion, all of the pictures having been drawn and commenced by the master before
39
- ↑ 'The picture of Bacchus in the Louvre need not be mentioned here, for originally this figure represented John the Baptist. Subsequently, although in Leonardo's time, it was changed into a Bacchus, but only in outward details. Further, the picture clearly betrays the hand of one of Leonardo's pupils; and of all the pictures associated with Leonardo's name it is the most indifferent.' Dr. Gronau, p. 146. Dr. Thiis does not even mention this picture.
- ↑ Dr. Gronau, p. 176.
- ↑ Dr. Thiis, p. 62.
