That not before the lapse of two hundred years after the resurrection of Art, the discovery of Chiaroscuro, as a principle of beauty in single figures and of effect in composition, should be awarded to Lionardo da Vinci, a patriarch of that school which time has shown of all others the least inclined to appreciate its advantages, is at once a proof of the singularity that marks the local distribution of powers, and of the inconceivable slowness which attends human perception in the progress of study: but without generally admitting what has been said with more energy than judgment or regard to truth, that modern art literally sprang from the loins of Lionardo, it must be granted that no work anterior or contemporary with his essays in Chiaroscuro now exists to disprove his claim to the first vision of its harmony; its magic lent the charm, by which his females allure, to forms neither ideal nor much varied; sisters of one family, they attract by the light in which they radiate, by the shade that veils them--for the features of Giotto's or Memmi's Madonnas or virgin-saints floating in the same medium, would require little more to be their equals. This principle Lionardo seems seldom if ever to have extended to relieve or recommend his larger compositions and male figures, if we except the group of contending horsemen which made or was intended for some part of his rival Cartoon in the Sala del Consiglio: a knot of supreme powers in Composition and Chiaroscuro: though, as we know it chiefly from a copy of P. P. Rubens engraved by Edelinck, the gross evidence of Flemish liberties taken with the style, makes it probable that the original simplicity of light and shade has been invigorated by the artificial contrasts of the copyist. Lionardo's open scenery, tinged with the glareless evenness of plain daylight, seldom warrants effects so concentrated. Unostentatious gravity marks the characters of his Last Supper, and in sober evening tones marked probably the Chiaroscuro of the groups and scenery, if we may be allowed to form our judgment from the little that remains unimpaired by the ravages of time and the more barbarous ones of renovators. To the discovery of central radiance the genius of Lionardo with equal penetration added its counterpart, _purity_ of shade and the coalescence of both through imperceptible demi-tints. Whatever tone of light he chose, he never forgot that the shade intended to set it off was only its absence, and not a positive colour, and that both were to be harmonized by demi-tints composed of both; a principle of which no school anterior to him has left a trace.