The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete
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 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