Page 110 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

and on another occasion he carefully recorded a with the fire engendered by the thunderbolts nation—which he believed must always be
miraculous rain of crosses that was experienced that rent and tore the clouds apart/' 67 nourished by the informed study of nature, as
in Nuremberg in 1503, depicting a specimen The two artists developed distinctively dif- Leonardo insisted — he did delight in the
Crucifixion as a guarantee of the authenticity of ferent conceptions of their own presence as sub- inherent ability of someone "naturally dis-
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the miracle. He also, as was common at that jective participant and objective observer in posed" toward art to "pour forth and produce
time, gave great credence to the doctrines of relation to the subjects they portrayed. This every day new shapes of men and other crea-
astrology. difference is reflected in their writings on the tures, the like of which was never seen before
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Leonardo, by contrast, was highly suspicious theory of art. Both men subscribed to the view nor thought of by any other man." He gives
of the extravagant fantasies of dreaming and that every painter tends to "paint himself" in social, theological, and philosophical justifica-
distrusted the attribution of natural phenomena his own works, that is to say, to create images tions for this ability: "Mighty kings... made
to the direct agency of the supernatural. His that reflect his personal idiosyncrasies, physical the outstanding artists rich and treated them
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deluges are no less "visionary" and apocalyptic and mental. Both viewed this tendency as with distinction because they felt that the great
than the storm of Diirer's dream, but their fury undesirable, since the deformities of the indi- masters had an equality with God, as it is writ-
is described in the formal terms of a vortex vidual lead the artist away from an understand- ten. For, a good painter is inwardly full of fig-
motion that is expressive of natural law. ing of true beauty. Diirer, however, was not ures, and if it were possible for him to live for
Leonardo's instructions for how to portray a prepared to go as far as Leonardo in subordinat- ever he would always have to pour forth some-
deluge are couched in impersonal terms: "Let ing individual response and subjective impulse thing new from the inner ideas of which Plato
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there first be represented.... " And his account to the rule of law. Leonardo disparaged inven- writes." Such access to God-given (or "Pla-
leaves no doubt that the deluge is to be tions and ideas that "begin and end in the tonic") ideas within the mind was not some-
described in accordance with the laws of dynam- mind," setting "experience" of the action of law thing that Leonardo sought.
ics and optics: "The waves that in concentric in nature above personal insight and far above It is consistent with the greater scope Diirer
circles flee the point of impact are carried by the kind of transcendental speculations on permitted the artist's individuality, whether as
their impetus across the path of other circular divine truth that were characteristic of a certain an impassioned observer of the signs of nature
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waves moving out of step with them, and after kind of neo-Platonism. He did not ignore the or as a font of endless ideas, that he was pre-
the moment of percussion leap up into the air artist's powers of invention; indeed, he gloried pared to acknowledge the special qualities of the
without breaking formation The air was in the ability of the artist's fantasia to devise artist's "hand." Although we see Leonardo's
darkened by the heavy rain that, driven aslant new forms through the infinitely variable com- works, particularly his drawings, as full of his
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by the crosswinds and wafted up and down pounding of natural features. But the artist's personal "handwriting," just as they teem with
through the air, resembled nothing other than inventions were no less subject to the necessi- his individual powers of invention, his own the-
dust, differing only in that this inundation was ties of natural law than were the creations of oretical injunctions left no room for the individ-
streaked through by the lines that drops of nature. Although Diirer by no means approved uality of the artist's touch. But Diirer was
water make as they fall. But its color was tinged of an artist relying upon his unaided imagi- fascinated by the gifted artist's "hand," both as

fig. 29. Albrecht Diirer, Piece of Turf. 1503, fig. 30. Albrecht Diirer, Dream of Waters Descending from the Sky. 1525, pen and ink and watercolor
watercolor and body color. Graphische Sammlung Ktmsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Albertina, Vienna

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