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while painting preserved the beautiful from the hand of time. "Helen of Troy, gazing in a mirror, in her old age, wondered how she had twice been ravished." Mortal beauty would thus vanish, if it were not rescued by art from destroying age and death.

Leonardo contrasted painting with sculpture, for he had practised both, and thought himself peculiarly qualified to judge their merit. He considered the former the nobler art of the two, for sculpture involved bodily toil and fatigue, while by its very nature it lacked perspective and atmosphere, colour, and the feeling of space. Painting, on the other hand, caused by an illusion, was in itself the result of^ deeper thought. An even broader test served to convince him of its final superiority. That art was of highest excellence, he wrote, which possessed most elements of variety and universality. Painting contained and reproduced all forms of nature; it made its appeal by the harmonious balance of parts which gratified all the senses. By its very duality it fulfilled the highest purpose. The painter was able to visualize the beauty which enchanted him, to bring to reality the fancy of his dreams, and give outward expression to the ideal within.

The genius of Leonardo as a painter came through unfolding the mystery of life. Like Miranda, he had gazed with wonder at the beauty of the world. "Look at the grace and sweetness

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