The pure music of
the painting remains when the drama is almost obliterated; and it
proves that Leonardo, when he chose, could withdraw himself from the
delight of hand-to-mouth experience into a vision of his own, that he
had the reserve and the creative power of the earlier masters and of
that austere, laborious youth who taunted him. If it were not for "The
Last Supper" we might doubt whether he could go further in art than the
vivid sketch of "The Magi"; but "The Last Supper" tells us how great his
passion for reality must have been, since it could distract him from the
making of such masterpieces.
That passion for reality itself made him cold to other passions. We know
Michelangelo and Beethoven as men in some respects very like other men.
They were anxious, fretful, full of affections and grievances, and much
concerned with their relations. Leonardo is like Melchizedek, not only
by the accident of birth, for he was a natural son, but by choice. He
never married, he never had a home; there is no evidence that he was
ever tied to any man or woman by his affections; yet it would be stupid
to call him cold, for his one grand passion absorbed him. Monks
suspected him, but in his heart he was celibate like the great monkish
saints, celibate not by vows but by preoccupation. It is clear that
from youth to age life had no cumulative power over him; as we should
say in our prosaic language, he never settled down, for he let things
happen to him and valued the very happening.
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