The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete
that all the oils that have been created in seads or fruits are
quite clear by nature, and the yellow colour you see in them only
comes of your not knowing how to draw it out. Fire or heat by its
nature has the power to make them acquire colour. See for example
the exudation or gums of trees which partake of the nature of rosin;
in a short time they harden because there is more heat in them than
in oil; and after some time they acquire a certain yellow hue
tending to black. But oil, not having so much heat does not do so;
although it hardens to some extent into sediment it becomes finer.
The change in oil which occurs in painting proceeds from a certain
fungus of the nature of a husk which exists in the skin which covers
the nut, and this being crushed along with the nuts and being of a
nature much resembling oil mixes with it; it is of so subtle a
nature that it combines with all colours and then comes to the
surface, and this it is which makes them change. And if you want the
oil to be good and not to thicken, put into it a little camphor
melted over a slow fire and mix it well with the oil and it will
never harden.
[Footnote: The same remark applies to these sections as to No. 618
and 619.]
On varnishes [or powders] (635-637).
635.
VARNISH [OR POWDER].
Take cypress [oil] and distil it and have a large pitcher, and put
in the extract with so much water as may make it appear like amber,
and cover it tightly so that none may evaporate. And when it is
dissolved you may add in your pitcher as much of the said solution,
as shall make it liquid to your taste. And you must know that amber
is the gum of the cypress-tree.
VARNISH [OR POWDER].
And since varnish [powder] is the resin of juniper, if you distil
juniper you can dissolve the said varnish [powder] in the essence,
as explained above.
636.
VARNISH [OR POWDER].
Notch a juniper tree and give it water at the roots, mix the liquor
which exudes with nut-oil and you will have a perfect varnish
[powder], made like amber varnish [powder], fine and of the best
quality make it in May or April.
637.
VARNISH [OR POWDER].
Mercury with Jupiter and Venus,--a paste made of these must be
corrected by the mould (?) continuously, until Mercury separates
itself entirely from Jupiter and Venus. [Footnote: Here, and in No.
641 _Mercurio_ seems to mean quicksilver, _Giove_ stands for iron,
_Venere_ for copper and _Saturno_ for lead.]
On chemical materials (638-650).
638.
Note how aqua vitae absorbs into itself all the colours and smells
of flowers. If you want to make blue put iris flowers into it and
for red solanum berries (?)
639.
Salt may be made from human excrement burnt and calcined and made
into lees, and dried by a slow fire, and all dung in like manner
yields salt, and these salts when distilled are very pungent.
640.
Sea water filtered through mud or clay, leaves all its saltness in
it. Woollen stuffs placed on board ship absorb fresh water. If sea
water is distilled under a retort it becomes of the first excellence
and any one who has a little stove in his kitchen can, with the same
wood as he cooks with, distil a great quantity of water if the
retort is a large one.
641.
MOULD(?).
The mould (?) may be of Venus, or of Jupiter and Saturn and placed
frequently in the fire. And it should be worked with fine emery and
the mould (?) should be of Venus and Jupiter impasted over (?)
Venus. But first you will test Venus and Mercury mixed with Jove,
and take means to cause Mercury to disperse; and then fold them well
together so that Venus or Jupiter be connected as thinly as
possible.
[Footnote: See the note to 637.]
642.
Nitre, vitriol, cinnabar, alum, salt ammoniac, sublimated mercury,
rock salt, alcali salt, common salt, rock alum, alum schist (?),
arsenic, sublimate, realgar, tartar, orpiment, verdegris.
643.
Pitch four ounces virgin wax, four ounces incense, two ounces oil of
roses one ounce.
644.
Four ounces virgin wax, four ounces Greek pitch, two ounces incense,
one ounce oil of roses, first melt the wax and oil then the Greek
pitch then the other things in powder.
645.
Very thin glass may be cut with scissors and when placed over inlaid
work of bone, gilt, or stained of other colours you can saw it
through together with the bone and then put it together and it will
retain a lustre that will not be scratched nor worn away by rubbing
with the hand.
646.
TO DILUTE WHITE WINE AND MAKE IT PURPLE.
Powder gall nuts and let this stand 8 days in the white wine; and in
the same way dissolve vitriol in water, and let the water stand and
settle very clear, and the wine likewise, each by itself, and strain
them well; and when you dilute the white wine with the water the
wine will become red.
647.
Put marcasite into aqua fortis and if it turns green, know that it
has copper in it. Take it out with saltpetre and soft soap.
648.
A white horse may have the spots removed with the Spanish haematite
or with aqua fortis or with ... Removes the black hair on a white
horse with the singeing iron. Force him to the ground.
649.
FIRE.
If you want to make a fire which will set a hall in a blaze without
injury do this: first perfume the hall with a dense smoke of incense
or some other odoriferous substance: It is a good trick to play. Or
boil ten pounds of brandy to evaporate, but see that the hall is
completely closed and throw up some powdered varnish among the fumes
and this powder will be supported by the smoke; then go into the
room suddenly with a lighted torch and at once it will be in a
blaze.
650.
FIRE.
Take away that yellow surface which covers oranges and distill them
in an alembic, until the distillation may be said to be perfect.
FIRE.
Close a room tightly and have a brasier of brass or iron with fire
in it and sprinkle on it two pints of aqua vitae, a little at a
time, so that it may be converted into smoke. Then make some one
come in with a light and suddenly you will see the room in a blaze
like a flash of lightning, and it will do no harm to any one.
VII.
PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY OF THE ART OF PAINTING.
The relation of art and nature (651. 652).
651.
What is fair in men, passes away, but not so in art.
652.
HE WHO DESPISES PAINTING LOVES NEITHER PHILOSOPHY NOR NATURE.
If you condemn painting, which is the only imitator of all visible
works of nature, you will certainly despise a subtle invention which
brings philosophy and subtle speculation to the consideration of the
nature of all forms--seas and plains, trees, animals, plants and
flowers--which are surrounded by shade and light. And this is true
knowledge and the legitimate issue of nature; for painting is born
of nature--or, to speak more correctly, we will say it is the
grandchild of nature; for all visible things are produced by nature,
and these her children have given birth to painting. Hence we may
justly call it the grandchild of nature and related to God.
Painting is superior to poetry (653. 654).
653.
THAT PAINTING SURPASSES ALL HUMAN WORKS BY THE SUBTLE CONSIDERATIONS
BELONGING TO IT.
The eye, which is called the window of the soul, is the principal
means by which the central sense can most completely and abundantly
appreciate the infinite works of nature; and the ear is the second,
which acquires dignity by hearing of the things the eye has seen. If
you, historians, or poets, or mathematicians had not seen things
with your eyes you could not report of them in writing. And if you,
0 poet, tell a story with your pen, the painter with his brush can
tell it more easily, with simpler completeness and less tedious to
be understood. And if you call painting dumb poetry, the painter may
call poetry blind painting. Now which is the worse defect? to be
blind or dumb? Though the poet is as free as the painter in the
invention of his fictions they are not so satisfactory to men as
paintings; for, though poetry is able to describe forms, actions and
places in words, the painter deals with the actual similitude of the
forms, in order to represent them. Now tell me which is the nearer
to the actual man: the name of man or the image of the man. The name
of man differs in different countries, but his form is never changed
but by death.
654.
And if the poet gratifies the sense by means of the ear, the painter
does so by the eye--the worthier sense; but I will say no more of
this but that, if a good painter represents the fury of a battle,
and if a poet describes one, and they are both together put before
the public, you will see where most of the spectators will stop, to
which they will pay most attention, on which they will bestow most
praise, and which will satisfy them best. Undoubtedly painting being
by a long way the more intelligible and beautiful, will please most.
Write up the name of God [Christ] in some spot and setup His image
opposite and you will see which will be most reverenced. Painting
comprehends in itself all the forms of nature, while you have
nothing but words, which are not universal as form is, and if you
have the effects of the representation, we have the representation
of the effects. Take a poet who describes the beauty of a lady to
her lover and a painter who represents her and you will see to which
nature guides the enamoured critic. Certainly the proof should be
allowed to rest on the verdict of experience. You have ranked
painting among the mechanical arts but, in truth, if painters were
as apt at praising their own works in writing as you are, it would
not lie under the stigma of so base a name. If you call it
mechanical because it is, in the first place, manual, and that it is
the hand which produces what is to be found in the imagination, you
too writers, who set down manually with the pen what is devised in
your mind. And if you say it is mechanical because it is done for
money, who falls into this error--if error it can be called--more
than you? If you lecture in the schools do you not go to whoever
pays you most? Do you do any work without pay? Still, I do not say
this as blaming such views, for every form of labour looks for its
reward. And if a poet should say: "I will invent a fiction with a
great purpose," the painter can do the same, as Apelles painted
Calumny. If you were to say that poetry is more eternal, I say the
works of a coppersmith are more eternal still, for time preserves
them longer than your works or ours; nevertheless they have not much
imagination [29]. And a picture, if painted on copper with enamel
colours may be yet more permanent. We, by our arts may be called the
grandsons of God. If poetry deals with moral philosophy, painting
deals with natural philosophy. Poetry describes the action of the
mind, painting considers what the mind may effect by the motions [of
the body]. If poetry can terrify people by hideous fictions,
painting can do as much by depicting the same things in action.
Supposing that a poet applies himself to represent beauty, ferocity,
or a base, a foul or a monstrous thing, as against a painter, he may
in his ways bring forth a variety of forms; but will the painter not
satisfy more? are there not pictures to be seen, so like the actual
things, that they deceive men and animals?
Painting is superior to sculpture (655. 656).
655.
THAT SCULPTURE IS LESS INTELLECTUAL THAN PAINTING, AND LACKS MANY
CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE.
I myself, having exercised myself no less in sculpture than in
painting and doing both one and the other in the same degree, it
seems to me that I can, without invidiousness, pronounce an opinion
as to which of the two is of the greatest merit and difficulty and
perfection. In the first place sculpture requires a certain light,