The Lost Diary of Leonardo’s Paint Mixer. Alex Parsons

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      But that’s not the worst part. He’s also taken to filling the studio with toothless old peasants. He gets them to come in and sit about having a laugh. When I’ve pushed the last old crank out of the door, he gets out his sketchbook and draws frantically from memory. I don’t know why he bothers. How many altarpieces or portraits of important people have you seen with a gaggle of grinning peasants in the foreground? None. Art patrons don’t want to see the rough side of life. They just want painters to make them look good in portraits and paint the usual religious paintings to make them feel holy.

      There is a bit of a change in the air. When Florence’s artistic set gather round for a bit of a natter, the talk is not of how many metres of mural they can knock out in a month, but how they can bring real emotion and feeling into their pictures.