In studying the Adoration of the Kings

In studying the Adoration of the Kings it is usual to take as a point of departure the drawing in the Louvre formerly in the Gallichon Collection, which shows one of his early attempts to arrive at the whole composition. In rejecting conventional patterns, he has lost the assurance and firmness of the Bonnat drawing. The touch is weak, the emphasis diffused, as if Leonardo was thinking aloud. But already he has discovered one of the chief motives of the final picture, the flow of adoration conveyed by figures kneeling and bending forward; and this is already contrasted with the detached vertical figure of the philosopher. He has also hit on the architectural motive of the background--the courtyard of a ruined palace of which only one side, with two staircases and a gallery, remains. Like the rest of the sheet, this architectural background is drawn with curious uncertainty and lack of perspective; and to correct this Leonardo made the only other study for the whole composition which has come down to us. This sheet, now in the Uffizi, is one of the most revealing of all his drawings. Ostensibly it is an exercise in formal perspective of a type common in Florence since Brunelleschi. The staircase wall of the courtyard with its two flights and elaborate arcades was sufficient pretext for such a study and is rendered with great mastery. Actually it is our earliest evidence of Leonardo's scientific attainments, and from the first science is made the scaffolding for his imagination. For this carefully measured courtyard has been invaded by an extraordinary retinue of ghosts; wild horses rear and toss their heads, agitated figures dart up the staircase and in and out of the arcades; and a camel, appearing for the first and last time in Leonardo's work, adds its exotic bulk to the dreamlike confusion of forms.

This drawing must date from an advanced stage in the development of the composition, since Leonardo has decided to transfer the staircase to the left, a decision involving some certainty in the disposition of the foreground figures. It is an indication of the immense pains he took over all his work that in the final version this elaborate drawing was not used. The ruined staircases were retained on the same plan, but in a different perspective.

In addition to these composition studies we have a number of drawings which can be related to the Uffizi Adoration. The most magical of these are silverpoint studies of horses, 1 in which the delicate medium is used to give a curious lunar quality of light. The figure sketches are in pen and ink, drawn with the light rapid stroke of Pollajuolo. They are notes of action, and some are simply leaves from sketchbooks of about this date, to which he naturally turned for suitable poses, following that practice which he was afterwards to recommend in the Trattato (95) of collecting and composing, in the long winter evenings, the nude studies done in the preceding summer. Others were done with the Adoration in mind, and show him preoccupied with two figures in particular, the youth bending forward with an expression of wonder, and the old man standing aloof in meditation. Both appear in perfected forms in the Uffizi picture, but for most of the figures no preliminary sketch survives. Our drawings for the Adoration, relatively abundant, can only be a fraction of the whole.

The final composition has been made the subject of much ingenious analysis, some of it more exhaustive than the unfinished state of the picture will allow. But I may point out how the simple parallelism of the earlier compositions has been entirely superseded. Instead, the main lines form a triangle backed by an arc. The right side of the triangle is a relatively straight line from the kneeling King's foot to St Joseph, and is echoed in the background by the line of the staircases. The left side rises in a series of curves, which are repeated in the arcades of the ruin, and supported by the leading gestures and glances. Round this triangle, an arc of shadowy figures flows like the Stream of Ocean of Ptolemaic geography. To stabilise this restless pattern Leonardo has placed four verticals, the two trees near the centre of the triangle, the two upright figures at its bases.

Even this bare, geometrical analysis of the composition gives a hint of its dramatic meaning. The symbolical homage of wisdom and science to a new faith is firmly expressed by the main figures; but pressing round them, like ghosts from the magical paganism of Apuleius, are those evasive creatures which writers on Leonardo are content to call angels. In the background, agitation of spirit inhabits the half-ruined construction of the intelligence. There remain the two figures at the sides, which seem to stand outside the scene, like leaders of a Greek chorus. To the left is the philosopher, whose noble form we saw in evolution. Morally and materially he has the grandeur of one of Masaccio's apostles. Opposite the Masaccio is a Giorgione: for no other name will fit the deeply romantic figure of a youth in armour on the right. He looks out of the picture with complete indifference, and as is usual with such detached figures a tradition has grown up that Leonardo has here portrayed himself. Whether or not this is true in a literal sense we cannot tell; but the student of Leonardo may feel that in these two figures of youth and age, moral and physical beauty, active and passive intelligence, he has indeed represented his own spirit, symbolising his dual nature as he does in those familiar expressions of his unconscious mind, the contrasted profiles.