do was one, and he often
said: "It is only in modelling that the painter can find the science of
shadow." For a long time earthen figures which he made use of in his
work were preserved.

The appearance of the _Madonna of the Rocks_ is singular, mysterious,
and charming. A kind of basaltic grotto shelters the divine group placed
on the bank of a spring which shows the stones of its bed through its
limpid waters. Through the arched grotto we see a rocky landscape dotted
with slender trees and traversed by a stream, on the banks of which is a
village; the colour of all this is as indefinable as those chimerical
countries that we pass through in dreams and is marvellously appropriate
to set off the figures.

What an adorable type is the Madonna! It is quite peculiar to Leonardo,
and does not in the least recall the virgins of Perugino nor those of
Raphael: the upper part of the head is spherical, the forehead well
developed; the oval of the cheeks sweeps down to a delicately curved
chin; the eyes with lowered lids are circled with shadow; the nose,
although fine, is not in a straight line with the forehead, like those
of the Greek statues; the nostrils seem to quiver as if palpitating with
respiration. The mouth, rather large, has that vague, enigmatical and
delicious smile which da Vinci gives to all the faces of his women;
faint malice mingles there with the expression of purity and kindness.
The hair, long, fine, and silky, falls in waving locks upon cheeks
bathed in shadows and half-tints, framing them with incomparable grace.

It is Lombard beauty idealized with an admirable execution whose only
fault is perhaps too absolute a perfection.

And what hands! especially the one stretched out with the fingers
foreshortened. M. Ingres alone has succeeded in repeating this _tour de
force_ in his figure of _La Musique couronnant Cherubini_. The
arrangement of the draperies is of that exquisite and precious taste
that characterizes da Vinci. An agrafe in the form of a medallion
fastens on the breast the ends of a mantle lifted up by the arms which
thus produce folds full of nobility and elegance.

The angel who is pointing out the Infant Jesus to the little Saint John
has the sweetest, the finest, and the proudest head that brush ever
fixed upon canvas. He belongs, if we may so express it, to the highest
celestial aristocracy. One might say he was a page of high birth
accustomed to place his foot on the steps of a throne.