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

the sun; on the others the roundness is imperceptible because they are in the shade. [Footnote: The text of this chapter is given in facsimile on Pls. XXXVI and XXXVII. The two halves of the leaf form but one in the original. On the margin close to lines 4 and 5 is the note: _rossore d’aria inverso l’orizonte_—(of the redness of the atmosphere near the horizon). The sketches on the lower portion of the page will be spoken of in No. 668.]

If the sun is in the East and the clouds in the West, the eye placed between the sun and the clouds sees the edges of the rounded forms composing these clouds as dark, and the portions which are surrounded by this dark [edge] are light. And this occurs because the edges of the rounded forms of these clouds are turned towards the upper or lateral sky, which is reflected in them.

Both the cloud and the tree display no roundness at all on their shaded side.

On images reflected in water.

 

478.

 

Painters often deceive themselves, by representing water in which they make the water reflect the objects seen by the man. But the water reflects the object from one side and the man sees it from the other; and it often happens that the painter sees an object from below, and thus one and the same object is seen from hind part before and upside down, because the water shows the image of the object in one way, and the eye sees it in another.

Of rainbows and rain (479. 480).

 

479.

 

The colours in the middle of the rainbow mingle together.

The bow in itself is not in the rain nor in the eye that sees it; though it is generated by the rain, the sun, and the eye. The rainbow is always seen by the eye that is between the rain and the body of the sun; hence if the sun is in the East and the rain is in the West it will appear on the rain in the West.

 

480.

 

When the air is condensed into rain it would produce a vacuum if the rest of the air did not prevent this by filling its place, as it does with a violent rush; and this is the wind which rises in the summer time, accompanied by heavy rain.

Of flower seeds.

 

481.

 

All the flowers which turn towards the sun perfect their seeds; but not the others; that is to say those which get only the reflection of the sun.

IX.

The Practice of Painting.

It is hardly necessary to offer any excuses for the division carried out in the arrangement of the text into practical suggestions and theoretical enquiries. It was evidently intended by Leonardo himself as we conclude from incidental remarks in the MSS. (for instance No 110_). The fact that this arrangement was never carried out either in the old MS. copies or in any edition since, is easily accounted for by the general disorder which results from the provisional distribution of the various chapters in the old copies. We have every reason to believe that the earliest copyists, in distributing the materials collected by them, did not in the least consider the order in which the original MS.lay before them._

It is evident that almost all the chapters which refer to the calling and life of the painter—and which are here brought together in the first section (Nos. 482-508_)—may be referred to two distinct periods in Leonardo’s life; most of them can be dated as belonging to the year_ 1492 or to 1515. At about this later time Leonardo may have formed the project of completing his Libro della Pittura, after an interval of some years, as it would seem, during which his interest in the subject had fallen somewhat into the background.

In the second section, which treats first of the artist’s studio, the construction of a suitable window forms the object of careful investigations; the special importance attached to this by Leonardo is sufficiently obvious. His theory of the incidence of light which was fully discussed in a former part of this work, was to him by no means of mere abstract value, but, being deduced, as he says, from experience (or experiment) was required to prove its utility in practice. Connected with this we find suggestions for the choice of a light with practical hints as to sketching a picture and some other precepts of a practical character which must come under consideration in the course of completing the painting. In all this I have followed the same principle of arrangement in the text as was carried out in the Theory of Painting, thus the suggestions for the Perspective of a picture, (Nos. 536-569_), are followed by the theory of light and shade for the practical method of optics (Nos._ 548—566_) and this by the practical precepts or the treatment of aerial perspective (_567—570_)._

In the passage on Portrait and Figure Painting the principles of painting as applied to a bust and head are separated and placed first, since the advice to figure painters must have some connection with the principles of the treatment of composition by which they are followed.

But this arrangement of the text made it seem advisable not to pick out the practical precepts as to the representation of trees and landscape from the close connection in which they were originally placed—unlike the rest of the practical precepts—with the theory of this branch of the subject. They must therefore be sought under the section entitled Botany for Painters.

As a supplement to the Libro di Pittura I have here added those texts which treat of the Painter’s materials,—as chalk, drawing paper, colours and their preparation, of the management of oils and varnishes; in the appendix are some notes on chemical substances. Possibly some of these, if not all, may have stood in connection with the preparation of colours. It is in the very nature of things that Leonardo’s incidental indications as to colours and the like should be now-a-days extremely obscure and could only be explained by professional experts—by them even in but few instances. It might therefore have seemed advisable to reproduce exactly the original text without offering any translation. The rendering here given is merely an attempt to suggest what Leonardo’s meaning may have been.

LOMAZZO tells us in his Trattato dell’arte della Pittura, Scultura ed Architettura (Milano 1584, libro II, Cap. XIV): “Va discorrendo ed argomentando Leonardo Vinci in un suo libro letto da me (?) questi anni passati, ch’egli scrisse di mano stanca ai prieghi di LUDOVICO SFORZA duca di Milano, in determinazione di questa questione, se e piu nobile la pittura o la scultura; dicendo che quanto piu un’arte porta seco fatica di corpo, e sudore, tanto piu e vile, e men pregiata”. But the existence of any book specially written for Lodovico il Moro on the superiority of Painting over sculpture is perhaps mythical. The various passages in praise of Painting as compared not merely with Sculpture but with Poetry, are scattered among MSS. of very different dates.

Besides, the way, in which the subject is discussed appears not to support the supposition, that these texts were prepared at a special request of the Duke.

I.

MORAL PRECEPTS FOR THE STUDENT OF PAINTING.

How to ascertain the dispositions for an artistic career.

 

482.

 

A WARNING CONCERNING YOUTHS WISHING TO BE PAINTERS.

Many are they who have a taste and love for drawing, but no talent; and this will be discernible in boys who are not diligent and never finish their drawings with shading.

The course of instruction for an artist (483-485).

 

483.

 

The youth should first learn perspective, then the proportions of objects. Then he may copy from some good master, to accustom himself to fine forms. Then from nature, to confirm by practice the rules he has learnt. Then see for a time the works of various masters. Then get the habit of putting his art into practice and work.

[Footnote: The Vatican copy and numerous abridgements all place this chapter at the beginning of the Trattato, and in consequence DUFRESNE and all subsequent editors have done the same. In the Vatican copy however all the general considerations on the relation of painting to the other arts are placed first, as introductory.]

 

484.

 

OF THE ORDER OF LEARNING TO DRAW.

First draw from drawings by good masters done from works of art and from nature, and not from memory; then from plastic work, with the guidance of the drawing done from it; and then from good natural models and this you must put into practice.

 

485.

 

PRECEPTS FOR DRAWING.

The artist ought first to exercise his hand by copying drawings from the hand of a good master. And having acquired that practice, under the criticism of his master, he should next practise drawing objects in relief of a good style, following the rules which will presently be given.

The study of the antique (486. 487).

 

486.

 

OF DRAWING.

Which is best, to draw from nature or from the antique? and which is more difficult to do outlines or light and shade?

 

487.

 

It is better to imitate [copy] the antique than modern work.

[Footnote 486, 487: These are the only two passages in which Leonardo alludes to the importance of antique art in the training of an artist. The question asked in No. 486 remains unanswered by him and it seems to me very doubtful whether the opinion stated in No. 487 is to be regarded as a reply to it. This opinion stands in the MS. in a connection—as will be explained later on—which seems to require us to limit its application to a single special case. At any rate we may suspect that when Leonardo put the question, he felt some hesitation as to the answer. Among his very numerous drawings I have not been able to find a single study from the antique, though a drawing in black chalk, at Windsor, of a man on horseback (PI. LXXIII) may perhaps be a reminiscence of the statue of Marcus Aurelius at Rome. It seems to me that the drapery in a pen and ink drawing of a bust, also at Windsor, has been borrowed from an antique model (Pl. XXX). G. G. Rossi has, I believe, correctly interpreted Leonardo’s feeling towards the antique in the following note on this passage in manzi’s edition, p. 501: “Sappiamo dalla storia, che i valorosi artisti Toscani dell’et� dell’oro dell’arte studiarono sugli antichi marmi raccolti dal Magnifico LORENZO DE’ MEDICI. Pare che il Vinci a tali monumenti non si accostasse. Quest’ uomo sempre riconosce per maestra la natura, e questo principio lo stringeva alla sola imitazione d� essa”—Compare No. 10, 26—28 footnote.]

The necessity of anatomical knowledge (488. 489).

 

488.

 

OF PAINTING.

It is indispensable to a Painter who would be thoroughly familiar with the limbs in all the positions and actions of which they are capable, in the nude, to know the anatomy of the sinews, bones, muscles and tendons so that, in their various movements and exertions, he may know which nerve or muscle is the cause of each movement and show those only as prominent and thickened, and not the others all over [the limb], as many do who, to seem great draughtsmen, draw their nude figures looking like wood, devoid of grace; so that you would think you were looking at a sack of walnuts rather than the human form, or a bundle of radishes rather than the muscles of figures.

 

489.

 

HOW IT IS NECESSARY TO A PAINTER THAT HE SHOULD KNOW THE INTRINSIC FORMS [STRUCTURE] OF MAN.

The painter who is familiar