Labisse Felix (b Douai, 9 March 1905; d Paris, 27 Jan 1982). French painter, illustrator and stage designer. He was of Flemish and Polish descent and worked in both France and Belgium. On a visit to Ostend in 1922 he met James Ensor, whose lifelong friendship he later commemorated in Bonjour M. Ensor (1964; Ostend, Mus. S. Kst.). In 1927 he set up his studio in Ostend, where he was associated not only with Ensor but also with Constant Permeke and Léon Spilliaert, and with the poets Henri Van de Putte, Jean Teugels and Michel de Ghelderode, and the film maker Henri Storck. He was self-taught and strongly influenced at first by Ensor. He sought to render both his own poetic reveries and the preoccupations of modern life through a technique of smoothly painted and strongly outlined violent colours. He specialized in images of a particular type of woman, at once strangely sensual and cold, whom he painted in blue and other exaggerated hues and who haunted his pictures like a mythical goddess, as in On the Other Side of the Grape-harvest Month (1980; Ghent, priv. col.). In 1928 he and Storck founded the Ciné Club in Ostend, which disseminated avant-garde films by Man Ray, Carl Dreyer and Fritz Lang, and he made a film of his own, La Mort de Vénus. In 1930 he founded the literary review Tribord, which ran to eight issues; collaborators included Max Jacob, Franz Hellens and Jean Teugels. Labrouste Henri (born May 11, 1801, Paris, France died June 24, 1875, Fontainebleau). French architect important for his earlyuse of iron frame construction. Labrouste entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1819, won the Prix de Rome for architecture in 1824, and spent the period from 1825 to 1830 in Italy, after which he opened a studio in Paris. Labrouste is primarily remembered for the two Parisian libraries he designed. The Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, built between 1843 and 1850, is still admired for the attractiveness and restraint of its decoration and for the sensitive use of exposed iron structural elements (columns and arches). Labrouste's second library project, the reading room of the Bibliothèque Nationale, was constructedbetween 1862 and 1868. Its roof consists of nine decorated metal domes supported by slender cast-iron columns. Lacombe Georges (b Versailles, 18 June 1868; d Alenзon, 29 June 1916). French painter and sculptor. He was born into a cultivated family of artistic inclination and independent means. He first studied with his mother, the printmaker and painter Laure Lacombe (1834–1924), and received further guidance from the French painters Georges Bertrand (1849–1929), Alfred Roll and Henri Gervex, who were family friends. From 1888 to 1897 he spent the summers at Camaret on the Brittany coast. In 1892 he befriended Paul Serusier and was soon attracted to the aesthetic of the NABIS. He painted Breton figural scenes and stylized seascapes characterized by flat patterns, Japanese print devices, and mysterious, often anthropomorphic imagery. Familiarity with Paul Gauguin in 1893–4 aroused his interest in wood-carving (an interest that may also have been nurtured by his father, an amateur cabinetmaker) and encouraged him to employ a deliberately crude technique. Known as ‘the Nabi sculptor’, Lacombe explored Symbolist themes such as the cycle of life and death treated in The Bed (1894–6; Paris, Mus. d’Orsay). Intrigued by the decorative arts, he created (e.g. Spring, Geneva, Petit Pal., Autumn, Pasadena, CA, Norton Simon Mus., c. 1894–5) and commissioned mural projects throughout his life, notably by Sйrusier and Paul Ranson. La Fresnaye Roger de (b Le Mans, 11 July 1885; d Grasse, 27 Nov 1925). French painter and draughtsman. Although he was born at Le Mans, where his father, an officer in the French army, was temporarily stationed, he came from an aristocratic family whose ancestral home, the Chateau de la Fresnaye, was near Falaise. His education, which was thorough and classically based, was followed by studies in Paris at the Académie Julian (1903–4) and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (1904–5 and 1906–8); from 1908 he studied at the Académie Ranson under Maurice Denis and Paul Sérusier, whose joint influence is evident in early works such as Woman with Chrysanthemums (1909; Paris, Pompidou), which has the dreamlike Symbolist atmosphere and stylization characteristic of work by the Nabis. Lalique Rene (b Ay, Marne, 6 April 1860; d Paris, 1945). French jeweller, glassmaker and designer. He began his studies at the Lycée Turgot near Vincennes and after his father’s death (1876) he was apprenticed to the Parisian jeweller Louis Aucoq, where he learnt to mount precious stones. Unable to further his training in France, he went to London to study at Sydenham College, which specialized in the graphic arts. On his return to Paris in 1880, he found employment as a jewellery designer creating models for such firms as Cartier and Boucheron. His compositions began to acquire a reputation and in 1885 he took over the workshop of Jules d’Estape in the Rue du 4 Septembre, Paris. He rejected the current trend for diamonds in grand settings and instead used such gemstones as bloodstones, tourmalines, cornelians and chrysoberyls together with plique à jour enamelling and inexpensive metals for his creations. His jewellery, which was in the Art Nouveau style, included hair-combs, collars, brooches, necklaces and buckles (e.g. water-nymph buckle, c. 1899–1901; Lisbon, Mus. Gulbenkian), and he also branched out into metalwork, producing gold boxes, inkwells and daggers. His favourite motifs included flowers and insects—poppies and anemones, and dragonflies and scarabs. His international reputation was established at the Exposition Universelle in 1887 in Paris and by securing such patrons as the actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1933). Lalique Rene (2) Lamba Jacqueline (1910 - 1993). Studied decorative arts in Paris. Married Andre Breton in 1934 and was the subject of many of his poems of those years including "La Nuit de Tournesol' which anticipated their meeting. Began exhibiting objects and drawings with the Surrealists. Arriving in New York, she developed automatism into a series of intense prismatic paintings close in spirit to the abstract work of Matta and Masson. Separated from Breton in 1943 and later married the American sculptor and photographer David Hare. First one-woman exhibition at the Norlyst Gallery, New York, in 1944. Also exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1946) and Galerie Pierre, Paris (1947). In her later years, lived as a recluse in her Paris studio. Developed Alzheimer's Disease in the last five years of her life. Lam Wifredo (1902-82). Cuban painter influenced by Picasso and Surrealism, and based on African sculpture and folk-art. His work evokes the savage world of the jungle and the primitive mythology of Cuba. He made use of the theme of metamorphosis as m Jungles (1943). Land art. *Farth art Lanfranco Giovanni (1582-1647). Italian Baroque painter, pupil of Agostino Carracci and influenced by the ceiling paintings of Correggio. He worked in Rome and Naples and decorated the domes and apses of many churches with lllusionistic paintings, a famous example being the dome of S. Andrea del Valle, Rome (1625—8). Langetti Giovan Battista (b Genoa, 1635; d Venice, 22 Oct 1676). Italian painter. His work suggests that Gioacchino Assereto was his principal teacher in Genoa. He must have travelled to Rome at a very early age, and there he studied under Pietro da Cortona (Soprani and Ratti). Very little of Cortona’s style can be detected in Langetti’s extant work, however; its extreme realism and strong contrasts of light and shade are closer to the art of Ribera and his school. It seems likely that Langetti travelled from Rome to Naples, possibly in the middle of the 1650s, to study the art of Ribera, Francesco Fracanzano and Giordano. Giordano may have advised him to go to Venice, where he had himself worked some years previously, and Langetti may have chosen to go in 1656 to avoid the plague that had broken out in Naples. For a brief period he studied in Venice with Giovanni Francesco Cassana (1611–90), a second-rate Genoese artist who painted in a naturalistic style reminiscent of Assereto. He then embarked on a highly successful Venetian career; already in 1660 Marco Boschini was writing of him in glowing terms. In a career of 20 years or so he clearly produced a considerable number of paintings: his catalogue of works numbers over 120 and new paintings are still being discovered. Only four of his works can be dated, on documentary evidence: an Apollo and Marsyas (before 1660), which was described by Boschini in 1660, a Crucifixion with Mary Magdalene (1663–4; Venice, S Teresa) and the companion pieces, St Peter and St Paul (1675; Padua, S Daniele). The Apollo and Marsyas, though not a copy of Ribera’s composition on the same subject (1637; Naples, Capodimonte), is deeply indebted to it. A canvas by Langetti in the Vatican, the Martyrdom of the Maccabees, is similarly indebted to Ribera in the rendering of the figures though with a relatively open composition more reminiscent of Cortona, and can possibly be dated even earlier. Lansere Eugene (b Pavlovsk, 4 Sept 1875; d Moscow, 13 Sept 1946). Painter and draughtsman. From 1892 to 1895 he studied in St Petersburg at the School of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. He also spent the winters of the years 1895–7 in Paris, attending the studio of Filippo Colarossi ( fl from 1884) and the Académie Julian. The greatest influence on his art, however, was Benois, whose reconstructions of life in the 18th century have much in common with those of Lansere. Through Benois he became a member of the World of Art (Mir Iskusstva) group in 1899. In the gouache Empress Yelizaveta Petrovna at Tsarskoye Selo (1905; Moscow, Tret’yakov Gal.), Lansere used a linear pattern and bright colours to re-create a scene from 18th-century Russia, much as Benois was doing at that time for life in 18th-century. Laocoon (c. 50 BC). Highly naturalistic and emotional late Hellenistic marble group of the Rhodian school. The Trojan priest L. was killed with his sons for offending the gods. Found in Nero's palace on the Esquiline in 1506, the statue profoundly influenced Michelangelo. Laokoon (1766) is the title of a treatise on art by *Lessing in which he attacked the Neoclassical views of the tragic and the beautiful which *Winckelmann considered that the statue of the Laocoon embodied. Largilliere Nicolas de (1656— 1746). French Rococo portrait painter. He studied in Antwerp, then worked in London as assistant to P. Lely. In 1682 he went to Pans, where he became the favourite painter of the wealthy bourgeoisie. He brought a new freedom and fluency to French portraiture. Larionov Mikhail (1881-1964). Russian painter trained in Moscow where he met *Goncharova. He was a prolific worker and a highly energetic personality who soon attracted a nucleus of Muscovite painters round him with whom he organized exhibitions such as the Golden Fleece, the 1st *Knave of Diamonds show, and in 1913 publ. his Rayonnist Manifesto which laid the foundations of abstract art in Russia. L. is important in Russian art history for his creative absorption of contemporary (1905—8) French ideas in painting; for his subsequent synthesis of these ideas with national folk-arts, e.g., in his Soldier series (1908—11); and for his Rayonnist work (1910—14), much of it abstract and among the first of such modern work, although not basically a system of non-representational composition. After 1914 he left Russia to work as a designer for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, and from then lived in Paris. Lascaux. Prehistoric caves in the Dordogne accidentally discovered in 1940 and containing paintings of bulls, horses, deer, etc. executed by Cro-Magnon men in the Aurignacian period of the upper paleolithic era (c. 20,000 BC). The growth of a fungus which endangered the paintings — evidently caused by increased humidity — led to the sealing off of the caves. *Cave art. La Тeпе. A site in E. Switzerland which has given its name to a style of Celtic art and a culture centred upon it and expanding throughout Central Europe and into Britain; it flourished in the last 5 cs BC. Its characteristic motifs are stylized and sinuous animal and plant forms; the style became increasingly abstract, especially in the art of Celtic Britain. La Tour Georges de (1593—1652). French artist born at Vic in Lorraine. La T. lived all his lite in the province, working at Luneville from 1620. Despite this isolation, he won recognition and rewards. In 1623 the duke of Lorraine became his patron. In 1638 King Louis XIII, accepting his St Sebastian letuled by St Irene, found it 'in such perfect taste that His Majesty had all the other pictures removed from his chamber and kept there only La T.'s'. This makes it curious that the artist was forgotten until his rediscovery in 1915. It has been claimed that his preference for scenes lit dramatically by a single artificial light shows the influence of Caravaggio or G. Honthorst, but this may have been an original discovery. Original, certainly, is the austere but rich and wonderfully effective colouring — red, yellow and a full range ot browns. There is considerable affinity in drawing between La T. and the *Master of Moulins. Outstanding examples of his work are: Job Taunted by his Wife, St Joseph's Dream, The Newborn and Magdalene with the Lamp. Latour Maurice-Quentin de (1704-88). French portraitist in pastel, one of the great masters of that medium, appointed painter to Louis XV in 1750. His work shows a degree of individual characterization outstanding in the portraiture of the Rococo period. Laughlin Clarence (1905-1985) was a United States photographer, best known for his surrealist photographs of the U.S. South.Laughlin was born in to a middle class family in Lake Charles, Louisiana. His rocky childhood, southern heritage, and interest in literature influenced his work greatly. His family lost everything in a failed rice growing venture in 1910, and were forced to relocate to New Orleans where Laughlin's father took on a factory job. Laughlin was an introverted child with few friends and a close relationship with his father, who cultivated and encouraged his lifelong love of literature. Laughlin was devastated when his father died 1918, and his grief was compounded by a Priest's false promise that God would save his ailing parent if he prayed hard enough. This left Laughlin with a deep suspicion of religion that surfaces frequently in his work. He dropped out of high school in 1920, after having barely completed his freshman year, he was self-educated and highly literate. His large vocabulary and love of language are evident in the elaborate captions he would later write to accompany his photographs. His early aspiration was to be a writer, and he wrote many poems and stories in the style of French symbolism. He tried for many years to publish his work, but was largely unsuccessful. He discovered photography when he was 25, and taught himself how to use a simple 2 1/2 by 2 1/4 view camera. He began working as a freelance architectural photographer, then moved on to be employed by such varied agencies as Vogue Magazine and the US government. He disliked the constraints of government work, and eventually split from Vogue after a conflict with then-editor Edward Steichen. Thereafter, he worked almost exclusively on personal projects utilizing a wide range of photographic styles and techniques, from straightforward geometric abstractions of architectural features to elaborately staged allegories utilizing models, costumes, and props. His work contains many elements of surrealism, which was more common in European photography at the time. Many historians actually credit him as being the first true surrealist photographer in the United States. Laughlin’s images are often nostalgic, he was influenced by Eugene Atget and other historical purists who tried to capture a vanishing urban landscape.Laughlin himself was something of a luddite, preferring older photographic equipment, and showing little interest in new technologies as they arrived. He was friends with Edward Weston and corresponded with many other prominent artists of his time. His best known book, "Ghosts Along the Mississippi", was first published in 1948. Laughlin died on January 2nd 1985, leaving behind a massive collection of books and images. Lawrence Jacob (1917— ). Perhaps the most popular 20th-c. African-American artist — a popularity he felt once to be at the expense of fellow black artists — who paints colourful, stylized figurative scenes of African-American life. L. was predominantly influenced by black artists, among them the African-American sculptor Augusta Savage (1892—1962). His best-known work is a series entitled The Migration of the Negro (1940-1) which represents, through 60 panels connected by descriptions, design and colour, the mass-migration of over a million African-Americans to northern industrial towns from the South. He painted Captain Skinner (1944) after serving in the U.S. coastguard in 1944, but returned to his political and cultural concerns after the war, e.g. Struggle - The History of the American People (1953—5 in 30 panels). Lawrence Sir Thomas (1769—1830). British painter. At 22 his Miss Farren made him the rival of Reynolds, whose portrait style he followed, adding a bravura of his own. An unfinished portrait, Wilberforce, shows the quality beneath the glittering surface. Sarah Moulton Barrett is one of the most vivacious of his popular studies of children. Among the many men of the day he painted, his portraits The Duke of Wellington and Cieorge IV as Prince Regent are outstanding examples. Lawrie Lee (German-born American Art Deco Sculptor, 1877-1963). Lawson Ernest (1873-1939). U.S. painter of rural and urban landscapes in an impressionistic style. He was a member of The *Eight and one of the sponsors of the Armory Show (1913). Lay figure. Wooden figure with jointed limbs, and often life-size, used to establish a pose or carry drapery. It is said to have been invented by Fra Bartolommeo. Layne Bill. Pin -Up Art. Leal Juan Valdes (b Seville, 4 May 1622; d Seville, 15 Oct 1690). Painter, draughtsman, sculptor and etcher. The last of the great Baroque painters of Seville, he was also a sculptor and etcher of considerable ability and was praised as an architect by his contemporaries, although no buildings by him are known. In addition, he wrote on art, though none of his writings is extant. With the exception of rare portraits, his paintings are entirely religious. The visual excitement of his style reflects his religious fervour. He is thus the antithesis of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, his more famous colleague. Le Brun Charles (1619-90). French painter, a student under Vouet and also in Rome, where he was influenced by Poussin. L.'s elegant and decorative classicism is thin-blooded, but as chief painter to the king (from 1662) and director of the Gobelins factory (from 1663), under the patronage of Colbert, he controlled the arts in France into the 1680s. He was also a founder and later director of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. His works include much of the decoration at Versailles. Le Corbusier originally named Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (1887—1965). One of the greatest modern architects. He was born in Switzerland. In addition to being an architect, Le C. was a propagandist for architecture, a founder of the C.I.A.M. and author of many books, the most influential Vers une architecture (1923). He was also a painter of some note, and in 1917 founded *Purism, with *Ozenfant; they publ. the influential magazine L'Esprit Nouveau. Leeteg Edgar (1904 St. Louis, Missouri - 1953) was an American painter often considered the father of American velvet painting. Before Leeteg, black velvet painting was primarily considered a hobby, not an art. Leeteg initially worked as a billboard painter and sign writer in California before losing his job due to the depression. Taking a small inheritance, Leeteg moved to Tahiti in 1933 with a few brushes and some paint stolen from his previous employer. Using the women of the island as his models, he sold paintings to visiting sailors. Leeteg's best work was done between the years 1933 and 1953. He lived in Cook's Bay, Tahiti using the dark skinned women of the island as his models. His main subject was beautiful Polynesian women, and he painted them amidst their background, their culture and their history. The eroticism, colour and detail of these paintings made him famous. Leeteg's popularity soared following a fortunate meeting with Honolulu art gallery owner Bernard Davis, who became his patron. It was with Davis' help that Leeteg built his great Villa Velour estate in Tahiti. Davis worked as Leeteg's agent and they had a fruitful and profitable relationship together. His paintings were popular in bars in America and Polynesia. Davis branded Leeteg the 'American Gauguin', and soon Leeteg's paintings were being sold for thousands of dollars. However, fame as an artist is something he never expected saying "My paintings belong in a gin mill, not a museum. If this modern crap is art, then just call my paintings beautiful. Don't call them art." Edgar Leeteg died in 1953 of a motorcycle crash at the age of 49. LEF. *Vkhutemas Le Faguas Pierre. Art Deco Leger Fernand (1881 —1955). French painter, trained initially as an architectural designer. He studied in various Paris studios between 1903 and 1907 when, like many others, he discovered Cezanne. For the next 7 years, reacting against the diffuseness of his early Neo-Impressionist manner, he worked towards a concentrated structural strength in his painting. His early *Cubist paintings (nicknamed 'tubist') differed from the mainstream m their volumetric solidity, in their deep space and in a *Futurist 'tendency towards the dynamic'. With his friend Delannay he was one of the most influential Cubist painters: Mondrian greatly admired him and the transitional works (c. 1911—12) of Malevich seem to derive directly from paintings such as Nus dans un paysage (1909—11). By 1912 (La Femme en Bleu) he was Hearing abstraction. He attributed his post-war abandonment of his path to his wartime discoveries first of the working man and second or the beauty of machinery. His major works are of contemporary subjects, simple in their black contours and bold colour areas and endowing the ordinary man with a 19th-c. monumentality, e.g. Les Loisins (1948—9). His contact with *De Stijl circles in the 1930s did not diminish his deep respect for the figurative tradition. He also collaborated on a film, Le Ballet mecaniqtie (1923—4) with Man Ray, and designed for stained glass, mosaics, ceramics and the stage. Legros Alphonse (1837—1911). French painter and etcher. He was associated with the early Impressionists and was a friend of Whistler, who persuaded him to come to Britain, where he settled. He was Slade professor at Univ. College, London (1876—92). Lehmbruck Wilhelm (1881 —1919). German sculptor. After living in Paris (1910—14) he returned to (lermany at the beginning of World War I; shocked by his experiences as a nurse in a military hospital he committed suicide. His early work was influenced by *Maillol. In 19т i with Kneeling Woman he began to create the slender, melancholy, expressionistic type of figure characteristic of his maturity. Legnanino - Stefano Maria Legnani (1660-1715). Leighton Frederic, Lord (1830—96). British painter and sculptor, the leading exponent of the sentimental classicism and idealism of the late Victorian era, in opposition to the *Pre-Raphaelites. He was brought up and studied on the Continent but settled in London in i860. He became president of the R.A. (1878), and was the 1st painter to receive a peerage (1 896). His house, Leighton House, at Holland Park, London, is now a museum. Lelli Ercole (b Bologna, 14 Sept 1702; d Bologna, 7 March 1766). Italian painter, draughtsman, sculptor, architect and coin-maker. His reputation is shadowed by the doubts that his contemporaries Luigi Crespi and Marcello Oretti cast on the authorship of many works to which he laid claim, and his many-sided career is difficult to reconstruct. He studied engraving with Giovanni Gioseffo dal Sole and then architecture with Ferdinando Galli-Bibiena. In 1727, favoured by his friend Giovan Pietro Zanotti, who was one of the judges, he won the Marsili prize offered by the Accademia Clementina of Bologna with his modest drawing of Judith and Holofernes (Bologna, Liceo A. & Accad. Clementina). This success enabled him to begin a career as a painter and sculptor. His paintings, few of which can be traced, include a Self-portrait (U. Bologna); a portrait of Eustachio Manfredi (U. Bologna, Ist. Scienze) is an example of his work as a sculptor. Lempicka Tamara de (b Warsaw, 1898; d Texas, 18 March 1980). American painter of Polish birth. She lived among the wealthy aristocracy in St Petersburg and fled with her husband from the Russian Revolution of 1917. In 1918 she arrived in Paris, where she studied briefly at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Montparnasse, before studying under Maurice Denis at the Académie Ranson, and then under André Lhote. Lhote’s theories of composition, his insistence on careful figure studies and the precise application of paint, often using pure colour, provided the groundwork for her own style of freely interpreted Synthetic Cubism. This rapidly became identified with Art Deco and with modernity of style and subject-matter. All her paintings were carefully composed. She made little attempt to create three-dimensional effects, but using hard, angular lines and shapes contrasted against rounded, soft forms she created a highly stylized view of the world, in particular of the sophisticated society of Paris. Her subject-matter was generally exotic, whether in the celebratory feminine ‘glamour’ of Young Girl in Green (c. 1928; Paris, Pompidou) or in the suave, elegantly dressed, fashionable figures in the quasi-religious Adam and Eve (1932; Geneva, Petit Pal.). Occasionally scenes of naked women in intertwined compositions recall those of Ingres. Her stylish and mannered portraits sought to convey the wealth of her aristocratic sitters. Her reputation went into eclipse after her move to the USA in 1939, although a retrospective exhibition in Paris in 1972 heralded a renewed interest in the paintings of her youth. Le Nain the brothers Antoine (1588—1648), Louis (1593-1648) and Matlneu (1607-77). French painters, rediscovered m the 19th c. Details of their lives are still obscure, but it is known that in 1648 they were members of the Academy. It is difficult to differentiate between them. Recent research has sought to establish Louis as the most significant; his pictures of peasants in their surroundings are painted with realism and formal strengths, and show the influence of Velazquez. The Family Portrait is a good example. Antoine worked mainly 011 a small scale and Matlneu produced more polished and pleasing paintings of cavaliers and genre. Lenbach Franz von (1836—1904). German popular portrait painter, e.g. his numerous portraits of Bismarck. Lentulov Aristarkh (b Nizhny Lomov, Penza, 16 Jan 1882; d Moscow, 15 April 1943). Russian painter. He studied art in Penza (1897–1903), Kiev (1903–5), and in St Petersburg (1906) under Dmitry Kardovsky. He participated in major exhibitions, including The Wreath (1907–8), The Link (1908) and Union of Russian Artists (1910). He was a founder-member in 1910 of the avant-garde exhibiting society the JACK OF DIAMONDS and remained a leader of the group until its dissolution in 1916. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). Florentine painter, sculptor and draughtsman, a universal genius who was architect, town planner, inventor, scientist, writer and musician. L. was the natural son of the notary at Vinci, then under Florentine rule. His extraordinary gifts were soon apparent and he was apprenticed (r. ] 470) to Andrea Verrocchio, leading Florentine artist. His fellow-apprentices were Lorenzo di Credi and Botticelli. Little is known about this period except that L. came under the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici and in 1472 became a master, a member of the Guild of St Luke. In 1482 he entered the service of Lodovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, where he was active as court painter, sculptor, architect and military engineer until the fall of Sforza in 1499, when the French armies occupied Milan. L. fled to Mantua, then to Venice, where he was employed as a military engineer. In 1500 he went to Florence, 2 years later joined Cesare Borgia in his campaigns, but on Borgia's defeat returned to Florence, where he remained until 1508. The Mona Lisa was painted in Florence between 1 503 and I 506. In 1508 L. was recalled to Milan by the French governor of the city, Charles d'Amboise, and for 5 years was occupied with scientific studies and plans for the construction of a canal. With his pupil and assistant, Francesco Melzi, he travelled to the Vatican in 1513 to seek the favour of the Medici Pope Leo X, but left disappointed in 1517 to join the court of the French king, Francis I. In Rome L. was surrounded by intrigue; in France, however, he was greatly appreciated and admired. He lived at the royal chateau de Cloux, near Amboise, until his death. L. left few authentic paintings. The Angel kneeling at the extreme left in Verrocchio's Baptism of Christ is believed to be his work. He assisted Verrocchio on a number of paintings, and this has led to a great deal of controversy over their authorship. The Annunciation (c. 1474) is attributed to L. on account of the mysterious landscape and the scientific rendering of depth; 2 Madonnas, now much restored, are also attributed to this period. In 1481 L. undertook a painting, the Adoration, for the monks of San Donato at Scopeto, but left it unfinished. The composition was significant for its grouping of figures, their expressive gestures and its chiaroscuro effect (also a characteristic of the unfinished St Jerome). During 1483 L. worked on the painting the Virgin of the Rocks; the version at the Louvre is considered to be earlier anil of greater artistic value. He painted a number of portraits of court ladies during his stay in Milan; the Lady with the Ermine was probably the duke's mistress. It is a masterly rendering of form and a profound psychological study. The Last Supper, painted 1495—8 for the refectory of the monastery of S. Maria delle Grazie, Milan, has, though now carefully restored, been much damaged and overpamted; moreover, because of L.'s experiment in this picture with oil paint, the wall surface was already affected by 1517. The spectator is drawn to participate in the action: Christ and the Apostles are sitting at a table which seems to stand as an extension of the refectory itself. In the Mona Lisa (1503) L. expressed with consummate skill his feeling for the mystery of existence. The forms are precise yet melting, fused into each other with subtle tonal transitions, the *sfumato perfected by L. and exploited by his followers. The cartoon of the Battle of Anghiari, painted at the same time in Florence, is now lost; several copies, including one by Rubens, have survived. When L. moved to France, he took with him the Mona Lisa, John the Baptist, and the Virgin and Child with St Anne. No authentic sculpture by L. is known. In Milan he made a model of an equestrian monument, the Sforza, but it was destroyed by French soldiers (1499) before it could be cast in bronze; it is known only by surviving drawings. Numerous landscape drawings and studies of heads and nude figures survive; many form part of his notes and scientific studies. L.'s draughtsmanship has never been equalled. His notebooks, written backwards and unknown to his contemporaries, contained profound scientific observations on proportion, perspective, optics, anatomy, geology and such inventions as cannons, tanks, a diving-suit and flying machines. His celebrated Treatise on Painting, which has survived in a fairly accurate copy by another hand, circulated widely in the ]6th c. L. greatly influenced his contemporaries, Correggio, Giorgione, Raphael and del Sarto, with his compositions and use of light. He influenced Rubens and foreshadowed the chiaroscuro of Rembrandt. Leoni Leone (b ?Menaggio, nr Como, c. 1509; d Milan, 22 July 1590). He was probably born in Menaggio on Lake Como, though his parents were from Arezzo, and throughout his life Leone referred to himself as Aretine. It is probable that his formative years were spent learning the trade of goldsmith, perhaps in Venice or Padua. The classicism and idealism of this school formed the basis of his style. Some time after 1533 he is recorded in Venice with his wife and infant son Pompeo, living under the protection of Pietro Aretino, to whom he was related. While in Venice, Leone worked as a goldsmith and made medals and statuettes (none of which can be identified). Leone’s skill and connections secured him a position at the mint in Ferrara, although he was forced to abandon this when accused of counterfeiting, the first of several misadventures that were to plague his life. Through Pietro Aretino, Leone received an introduction to the poet Pietro Bembo, and in 1537 he travelled to Padua to prepare Bembo’s portrait medal (untraced). Lepape Georges (1887-1971, France). Art Deco. Lesage Augustin (French, 1876-1954) Lessing Gotthold Ephraim (1729-81). German scholar and writer on art, whose essay, *Laokoon (1766), became extremely influential. *Winckelmann. Le Sueur Eustache (1616—55). French painter of religious and mythological subjects, pupil of S. Vouet, who strongly influenced his early work. He subsequently followed Poussin's classicism, evident 111 his 22 paintings The Life of St Bruno (1645—8) tor the Charterhouse, Paris. In his late work he became a dull imitator of Raphael. Levi Juan de (b Saragossa; fl 1388–1410). Spanish painter. He belonged to a family of converted Jews and was the nephew and pupil of the painter Guillén de Levi. He painted the altarpiece of SS Laurence, Catherine and Prudence, commissioned by the brother prelates Fernando and Pedro Pérez Calvillo for their sepulchral chapel, founded in 1376, in Tarazona Cathedral (Saragossa). The altarpiece was finished by 1403, when it was mentioned as a model in a contract that commissioned Juan de Levi to supply a retable for S Jaime, Montalban (untraced). Other documents record that he executed works in Huesca, Saragossa and Teruel, but none of these survives. The altarpiece in Tarazona Cathedral, Juan’s only surviving authenticated work, is one of the most beautiful examples of late 14th-century Aragonese art. It is painted in an expressive and elegant style, and shows great narrative ability. It indicates a development from an Italianizing Gothic style, of Sienese origin, towards a more international manner that incorporated elements derived from the work of north European masters. Levine Jack (1915— ). U.S. Hxpressionist painter, reminiscent of G. Grosz, whose work is devoted to social themes. The savage satire of The Feast of Pure Reason (1937) was moderated in later paintings by a more tolerant attitude towards humanity.