The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci by Leonardo Da Vinci (moboreader txt) 📕

bluer tinge which will be in itself darker; therefore, when the trees have lost their leaves they will look of a gray colour, while, with their leaves, they are green, and in proportion as the green is darker than the grey hue the green will be of a bluer tinge than the gray. Also by the 2nd of this: The shadows of trees covered with leaves are darker than the shadows of those trees which have lost their leaves in proportion as the trees covered with leaves are denser than those without leaves—and thus my meaning is proved.

The definition of the blue colour of the atmosphere explains why the landscape is bluer in the summer than in the winter.

 

462.

 

OF PAINTING IN A LANDSCAPE.

If the slope of a hill comes between the eye and the horizon, sloping towards the eye, while the eye is opposite the middle of the height of this slope, then that hill will increase in darkness throughout its length. This is proved by the 7th of this which says that a tree looks darkest when it is seen from below; the proposition is verified, since this hill will, on its upper half show all its trees as much from the side which is lighted by the light of the sky, as from that which is in shade from the darkness of the earth; whence it must result that these trees are of a medium darkness. And from this [middle] spot towards the base of the hill, these trees will be lighter by degrees by the converse of the 7th and by the said 7th: For trees so placed, the nearer they are to the summit of the hill the darker they necessarily become. But this darkness is not in proportion to the distance, by the 8th of this which says: That object shows darkest which is [seen] in the clearest atmosphere; and by the 10th: That shows darkest which stands out against a lighter background.

[Footnote: The quotation in this passage again cannot be verified.]

 

463.

 

OF LANDSCAPES.

The colours of the shadows in mountains at a great distance take a most lovely blue, much purer than their illuminated portions. And from this it follows that when the rock of a mountain is reddish the illuminated portions are violet (?) and the more they are lighted the more they display their proper colour.

 

464.

 

A place is most luminous when it is most remote from mountains.

On the treatment of light for views of towns (465-469).

 

465.

 

OF LIGHT AND SHADOW IN A TOWN.

When the sun is in the East and the eye is above the centre of a town, the eye will see the Southern part of the town with its roofs half in shade and half in light, and the same towards the North; the Eastern side will be all in shadow and the Western will be all in light.

 

466.

 

Of the houses of a town, in which the divisions between the houses may be distinguished by the light which fall on the mist at the bottom. If the eye is above the houses the light seen in the space that is between one house and the next sinks by degrees into thicker mist; and yet, being less transparent, it appears whiter; and if the houses are some higher than the others, since the true [colour] is always more discernible through the thinner atmosphere, the houses will look darker in proportion as they are higher up. Let n o p q represent the various density of the atmosphere thick with moisture, a being the eye, the house b c will look lightest at the bottom, because it is in a thicker atmosphere; the lines c d f will appear equally light, for although f is more distant than c, it is raised into a thinner atmosphere, if the houses b e are of the same height, because they cross a brightness which is varied by mist, but this is only because the line of the eye which starts from above ends by piercing a lower and denser atmosphere at d than at b. Thus the line a f is lower at f than at c; and the house f will be seen darker at e from the line e k as far as m, than the tops of the houses standing in front of it.

 

467.

 

OF TOWNS OR OTHER BUILDINGS SEEN IN THE EVENING OR THE MORNING THROUGH THE MIST.

Of buildings seen at a great distance in the evening or the morning, as in mist or dense atmosphere, only those portions are seen in brightness which are lighted up by the sun which is near the horizon; and those portions which are not lighted up by the sun remain almost of the same colour and medium tone as the mist.

WHY OBJECTS WHICH ARE HIGH UP AND AT A DISTANCE ARE DARKER THAN THE LOWER ONES, EVEN IF THE MIST IS UNIFORMLY DENSE.

Of objects standing in a mist or other dense atmosphere, whether from vapour or smoke or distance, those will be most visible which are the highest. And among objects of equal height that will be the darkest [strongest] which has for background the deepest mist. Thus the eye h looking at a b c, towers of equal height, one with another, sees c the top of the first tower at r, at two degrees of depth in the mist; and sees the height of the middle tower b through one single degree of mist. Therefore the top of the tower c appears stronger than the top of the tower b, &c.

 

468.

 

OF THE SMOKE OF A TOWN.

Smoke is seen better and more distinctly on the Eastern side than on the Western when the sun is in the East; and this arises from two causes; the first is that the sun, with its rays, shines through the particles of the smoke and lights them up and makes them visible. The second is that the roofs of the houses seen in the East at this time are in shadow, because their obliquity does not allow of their being illuminated by the sun. And the same thing occurs with dust; and both one and the other look the lighter in proportion as they are denser, and they are densest towards the middle.

 

469.

 

OF SMOKE AND DUST.

If the sun is in the East the smoke of cities will not be visible in the West, because on that side it is not seen penetrated by the solar rays, nor on a dark background; since the roofs of the houses turn the same side to the eye as they turn towards the sun, and on this light background the smoke is not very visible.

But dust, under the same aspect, will look darker than smoke being of denser material than smoke which is moist.

The effect of wind on trees (470-473).

 

470.

 

OF REPRESENTING WIND.

In representing wind, besides the bending of the boughs and the reversing of their leaves towards the quarter whence the wind comes, you should also represent them amid clouds of fine dust mingled with the troubled air.

 

471.

 

Describe landscapes with the wind, and the water, and the setting and rising of the sun.

THE WIND.

All the leaves which hung towards the earth by the bending of the shoots with their branches, are turned up side down by the gusts of wind, and here their perspective is reversed; for, if the tree is between you and the quarter of the wind, the leaves which are towards you remain in their natural aspect, while those on the opposite side which ought to have their points in a contrary direction have, by being turned over, their points turned towards you.

 

472.

 

Trees struck by the force of the wind bend to the side towards which the wind is blowing; and the wind being past they bend in the contrary direction, that is in reverse motion.

 

473.

 

That portion of a tree which is farthest from the force which strikes it is the most injured by the blow because it bears most strain; thus nature has foreseen this case by thickening them in that part where they can be most hurt; and most in such trees as grow to great heights, as pines and the like. [Footnote: Compare the sketch drawn with a pen and washed with Indian ink on Pl. XL, No. 1. In the Vatican copy we find, under a section entitled ‘del fumo‘, the following remark: _Era sotto di questo capitulo un rompimento di montagna, per dentro delle quali roture scherzaua fiame di fuoco, disegnate di penna et ombrate d’acquarella, da uedere cosa mirabile et uiua (Ed. MANZI, p. 235. Ed. LUDWIG, Vol. I, 460). This appears to refer to the left hand portion of the drawing here given from the Windsor collection, and from this it must be inferred, that the leaf as it now exists in the library of the Queen of England, was already separated from the original MS. at the time when the Vatican copy was made.]

Light and shade on clouds (474-477).

 

474.

 

Describe how the clouds are formed and how they dissolve, and what cause raises vapour.

 

475.

 

The shadows in clouds are lighter in proportion as they are nearer to the horizon.

[Footnote: The drawing belonging to this was in black chalk and is totally effaced.]

 

476.

 

When clouds come between the sun and the eye all the upper edges of their round forms are light, and towards the middle they are dark, and this happens because towards the top these edges have the sun above them while you are below them; and the same thing happens with the position of the branches of trees; and again the clouds, like the trees, being somewhat transparent, are lighted up in part, and at the edges they show thinner.

But, when the eye is between the cloud and the sun, the cloud has the contrary effect to the former, for the edges of its mass are dark and it is light towards the middle; and this happens because you see the same side as faces the sun, and because the edges have some transparency and reveal to the eye that portion which is hidden beyond them, and which, as it does not catch the sunlight like that portion turned towards it, is necessarily somewhat darker. Again, it may be that you see the details of these rounded masses from the lower side, while the sun shines on the upper side and as they are not so situated as to reflect the light of the sun, as in the first instance they remain dark.

The black clouds which are often seen higher up than those which are illuminated by the sun are shaded by other clouds, lying between them and the sun.

Again, the rounded forms of the clouds that face the sun, show their edges dark because they lie against the light background; and to see that this is true, you may look at the top of any cloud that is wholly light because it lies against the blue of the atmosphere, which is darker than the cloud.

[Footnote: A drawing in red chalk from the Windsor collection (see Pl. XXIX), representing a landscape with storm-clouds, may serve to illustrate this section as well as the following one.]

 

477.

 

OF CLOUDS, SMOKE AND DUST AND THE FLAMES OF A FURNACE OR OF A BURNING KILN.

The clouds do not show their rounded forms excepting on the sides which face