We may be justified in
maintaining that the tension between sexuality and spiritual love had
been slackening in the course of the centuries, that sexuality was
conceived as less diabolical, and love as less celestial than
heretofore; but the principle had remained unchanged. Only the female
portraits of Leonardo da Vinci are deserving of special mention; the
great artist was possibly the first who artistically divined, if he did
not achieve, the synthesis. The exceptional position always granted to
his women--particularly to his Mona Lisa--must doubtless be ascribed to
this premonition. We may be certain that Leonardo not only as artist,
but as lover also, was ahead of his time; but he must be regarded as an
isolated instance. The three stages apply to the eroticism of man only.
His emotion soared from brutality to divinity, and then gradually became
human; his feeling alone has a history. The force which seized, moulded
and transformed him, had no influence over woman. Compared to man, she
is to-day what she was at the beginning, pure nature.
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