Series of drawings for the Trivulzio monument

In the final series of drawings for the Trivulzio monument two problems were absorbing Leonardo's attention: the filling of the space below the belly of the prancing horse and the position of the rider. In both he owed much--more than ever before in his life--to the study of classical art. Müller-Walde claims that this was due to the study of an antique equestrian statue at Pavia since destroyed, known as the Regisole, which to judge from our crude representations of it was very like the Marcus Aurelius now on the Capitol. Leonardo mentions this statue in a note in the Codice Atlantico (f. 147 recto). "The one at Pavia is more praised for its movement than anything else--the imitation of antique things is more praiseworthy than that of modern--one cannot have beauty and utility together, as may be seen in men and fortresses--the trot has almost the quality of a free horse--where natural liveliness is lacking, it is necessary to make accidental liveliness." I have quoted the entry in full because beside referring to the Regisole, it is a good example of Leonardo's way of jotting down his thoughts, and shows his humanist (anti-functionalist) aesthetic. It also shows that his increased interest in the antique was not limited to the statue at Pavia. In fact, most of his later drawings for the Trivulzio monument seem to derive more from classical reliefs or gems, and even show the rider transformed into a nude and laurel-crowned hero. The relation of the rider to the horse was a point which, in his work on the Sforza monument, Leonardo had disregarded.

It was always referred to simply as il cavallo: the rider was to be cast separately and added later. Such a haphazard procedure was foreign to Leonardo's later ideal of perfection, and in the sketches for the Trivulzio monument the rider is always indicated, his position varying with minute variations in the pose of the horse. These variations--a barely perceptible raising or lowering of the head or fore-leg which gives a slightly different movement to the whole--cannot be described in detail, but may be understood from one example. Was the rider's arm to be pointing forwards or backwards? At first, following the precedents of Gattamelata and the antique, he is pointing forwards (12,343, 12,356). But Leonardo found this rather stiff (dove manca la vivacità naturale, bisogna farne una accidentale), and in 12,359 he experiments with what I may call an open pose, the rider pointing rhetorically backwards. The idea is worked out with a walking horse in two small sketches on 12,342 and 12,344 verso; but not to his satisfaction, as he continues to experiment with the closed form, trying to give it movement by making the rider point forwards though looking backwards (12,342, lower drawing), or lean forwards energetically (12,360, lower drawing). An interesting example of the relation of horse and rider is the pen and ink drawing on 12,360. Here we feel at once that the open pose is too open, and we wonder how Leonardo came to make such a mistake until we notice that in the original chalk drawing the rider is leaning forwards, and it was only when he came to ink the drawing in that Leonardo makes him point backwards, without altering the pose of the horse's neck.

We do not know which pose Leonardo would have selected finally, but it may be some indication that on a sheet at Windsor, 12,347 with instructions for casting the statue written at this time, an illustrative sketch shows the rider in the open pose. Similarly, in the project for the prancing horse, he tries several variations on the motive, familiar in classical reliefs, of the conquered foe crouching beneath its hooves, and in one drawing actually turns the trampled man on his back so that his legs, pressed against the horse's belly, form a counter rhythm to the rider's upraised arm. Although more closely knit than the first Sforza designs, this, too, has an intricacy unsuitable to large-scale sculpture, and probably Leonardo never intended to carry out the design of the prancing horse; at least, one of his drawings of it (12,354) seems to belong to a later date than the rest of the series, and can never have been intended for use. It is Leonardo's last word on a subject which had interested him all his life, and is worth comparing with Michelangelo's last word on one of his problems, the composition of two nudes, as we see it in a drawing in the Ashmolean. The similarity of the two drawings is obvious and rather touching since it would have been equally distasteful to either artist. Both have learnt in old age to avoid outlines and to present their subject through interior modelling, suggested by mysterious blots and blurs. This is what Cézanne meant when he praised a picture by saying that it was dessiné dans la forme.