His state of mind

Constitutional dilatoriness, an inability to carry anything through from beginning to end without the intervention of a thousand experiments and afterthoughts, had always been part of Leonardo's character, and we must recognise it as a disease of the will similar to that which ruined the magnificent intellect of Coleridge. Di mi se mai fu fatta alcuna cosa--tell me if anything was ever done--this terribly revealing sentence was the first to flow from Leonardo's pen in any vacant moment. Di mi se mai, di mi se mai, again and again, dozens of times, we find it on sheets of drawings, among scribbles or mathematical jottings, or beside the most painstaking calculations, till it becomes a sort of refrain, and a clear symptom of his trouble. With Leonardo, of course, the shrinking of the will was only intermittent and was largely cancelled by the super-human energy of his mind. But during those years in Rome it seems to have taken a hold on him, and almost the only record of his activity is a note in which he mentions his De Ludo Geometrico "fulished on the 7th day of July, at the 23rd hour, in the study made for me by il Magnifico (Giuliano). Innumerable drawings in the Codice Atlantico--one sheet alone contains ninety-three--show us the nature of these geometrical games, and leave us lamenting the waste of Leonardo's time and ingenuity. For these figures have as much to do with geometry as a crossword puzzle has to do with literature.

A drawing at Windsor, which dates from these years, seems to symbolise his state of mind. It shows an old bearded man seated in profile, his head on his hand gazing into the distance, with an air of profound melancholy. His nutcracker nose and sharply turned down mouth remind us of the old men in Leonardo's unconscious scribbles, but his curling beard and large deep-set eye recall the likenesses of Leonardo himself. Even if this is not strictly a self-portrait we may call it a selfcaricature, using the word to mean a simplified expression of essential character. Opposite him on the sheet are studies of swirling water and a note comparing its movement to that of plaited hair; and although these studies were not intended to have any connection with the old man, for the sheet was originally folded over, they are like the projection of his thoughts. For of all Leonardo's interests the most continuous and obsessive was the movement of water. At various times in his life he had been able to turn this obsession to semi-practical ends by applying himself to problems of canalisation and irrigation. But the quantity of his notes on the subject--it forms one of the largest and most disheartening sections of his written work--and the quality of his drawings show a passion with no relation to practical life. Some of his studies of swirling water are amongst the most direct expressions of his sense of form, springing from the same mysterious source as his love of knots and tendrils.

A sheet at Windsor shows water taking the form of both hair and flowers, racing along in twisted strands, and pouring from a sluice so that it makes dozens of little whirlpools, like a cluster of ferns with long curling tendrils. His super-human quickness of eye has allowed him to fasten on the decorative aspects of the subject, since confirmed by spark photography, and we must take these drawings of water as genuinely scientific. But as he gazed half hypnotised at the ruthless continuum of watery movement, Leonardo began to transpose his observations into the realm of the imagination, and to associate them with an idea of cataclysmic destruction which had always haunted him. Here for once he seems to have been touched by contemporary emotions, for the last years of the fifteenth century saw a series of prophetic writings, foretelling the destruction of the world by flood. These prophecies, which form a branch of the apocalyptic writings accompanying the Reformation, were condemned by the Church, but in spite of official opposition, they took an extraordinary hold on the popular mind and we are told that many made preparation for the catastrophe, sold their houses and fled to the hills, so that in parts of Germany whole villages were deserted. It is revealing that Leonardo, who seems to have been quite impervious to religious beliefs in general, should have allowed his mind to dwell on these prognostications of a deluge. They correspond with his own deepest belief: that the destructive forces of nature were like a reservoir, dammed up by a thin, unsteady wall, which at any moment might burst, and sweep away the pretentious homunculi who had dared to maintain that man was the measure of all things. By a curious chance, the artist who, in some ways, most resembled him, Albert Dürer, was also influenced by the idea of a deluge.

In the year 1525 (says Diirer), between Wednesday and Thursday after Whitsunday during the night, I saw this appearance in my sleep, how many great waters fell from heaven. The first struck the earth about four miles away from me with a terrific force, with tremendous clamour and clash, drowning the whole land. . . . I was so frightened when I awoke that my whole body trembled and for a long while I could not come to myself. So when I arose in the morning, I painted above here as I had seen it. God turn all things to the best.