(_γ_) Out of this fusion of the more embracing reality of life with the ideal material of religious emotion arose a new problem for genius to solve, the complete solution of which was reserved for the great masters of the sixteenth century. The supreme aim now was to bring the intimate life of soul, the seriousness and the loftiness of religious emotion into harmony with the animation, the actual presence of characters and forms both in its corporeal and spiritual aspect, in order that the bodily configuration in its pose, movement, and colour, may not simply remain an external framework, but become itself essentially an expression of spirit and life, and by virtue of that expression, made throughout all its parts wholly the reflex of soul-life no less than of external form, reveal a beauty without break or interruption. Among the masters of most distinction, who set before themselves such an aim, we should pre-eminently mention Leonardo da Vinci. It was he, who, by virtue of his artistic thoroughness, his almost over-refined passion for detail, his exquisite delicacy of mind and feeling, not only penetrated further than any other[363] into the mysteries of the human form and the secrets of its expression, but, through his equally profound knowledge of all the technique of a painter, attained to an extraordinary infallibility in the employment of all the means that his researches and practice had placed within his reach. And, along with this, he was able to retain a reverential seriousness in composing his religious subjects, so that his figures, however much they present to us the ideal of a more complete and rounded actuality, and disclose the expression of sweet, smiling joyfulness in facial traits and the delicate rhythm of drapery, do not thereby dispense with the dignity, which the worth and truth of religion demand[364].