One day, soon after their arrival, as they were in the Brera Gallery, looking for the third or fourth time at Leonardo’s Head of Christ, Barbara remarked that she was disappointed because she could not find any particular characteristic of this great artist’s work, as she had so often been able to do with others.  “I feel that I cannot yet recognize even his style,” she lamented.

“You have as yet seen none of the pictures which contain his characteristic ideal face,” replied Mr. Sumner.  “But there is work here in Milan by Bernardino Luini, who studied Leonardo so intimately that he caught his spirit in a greater degree than did any other of his followers.  Indeed, several of Luini’s pictures have been attributed to Leonardo until very recently.  This is a picture by Luini—­right here—­the Madonna of the Rose-Trellis.  The Madonna is strikingly like Leonardo’s ideal in the long, slender nose, the rather pointed chin, the dark, flowing hair,—­and, above all, in the evidence of some deep thought.  If it were Leonardo’s, there would be, with all this, a faint, subtile smile.  See the treatment of light and shade,—­so delicate, and yet so strong.  This is also like Leonardo.”

After a few minutes spent in study of the picture, Mr. Sumner continued:  “There is a singular mannerism in the backgrounds of Leonardo’s pictures.  It is the representation of running water between rocks,—­a strange fancy.  We see the suggestion of it through the window behind Christ in the Last Supper, and it forms the entire background of the famous Mona Lisa, in the Louvre.  There is a beautiful picture by Luini, The Marriage of St. Catherine, in the Poldi-Pezzoli Museum here in Milan, to which we will go at once.  The faces are thoroughly Leonardesque, and through an open window in the background we clearly see the streamlet flowing between rocky shores.

“But first,” he added, as they turned to go out, “let us go into this corridor where we shall find quite a large number of Luini’s frescoes, which have been collected from the churches in which he painted them.  I think you will grow familiar with Leonardo’s faces through study of Luini.”

During the stay in Milan they went down to Parma for a day, just to look at the fine examples of Correggio’s works in the gallery and churches.  In this city they could get the association of this artist with his works as nowhere else.

[Illustration:  LUINI.  POLDI-PEZZOLI MUSEUM, MILAN.

MARRIAGE OF SAINT CATHERINE.]

Mr. Sumner told them that it was a good thing to give especial attention to Correggio while studying Leonardo, because there is a certain similarity, and yet a very wide difference, between their works.  Both painters were consummate masters of the art.  Their beautiful figures, perfect in drawing and full of grace and life, melt into soft, rich shadows.  Both loved especially to paint women, and smiling women; but the difference between the smiles is as great as between light and darkness.  Leonardo’s are inexplicable; are wrought from within by depths of feeling we cannot understand.  Correggio’s only play about the lips, and are as simple as childhood.  Leonardo’s whole life was given to the study of mankind’s innermost emotions.  Correggio was no deep student of human nature.