Part 18

[Footnote 33: The author here speaks of unpolished Nature; and indeed it is from such subjects only, that the genuine and characteristic operations of Nature are to be learnt. It is the effect of education to correct the natural peculiarities and defects, and, by so doing, to assimilate one person to the rest of the world.]

[Footnote 34: See chap. cxxiii.]

[Footnote 35: See chap. cclxiv.]

[Footnote 36: See chapter cclxvii.]

[Footnote 37: Sir Joshua Reynolds frequently inculcated these precepts in his lectures, and indeed they cannot be too often enforced.]

[Footnote 38: Probably this would have formed a part of his intended Treatise on Light and Shadow, but no such proposition occurs in the present work.]

[Footnote 39: See chapters cc. and ccix.]

[Footnote 40: See chap. ccix.]

[Footnote 41: This cannot be taken as an absolute rule; it must be left in a great measure to the judgment of the painter. For much graceful softness and grandeur is acquired, sometimes, by blending the lights of the figures with the light part of the ground; and so of the shadows; as Leonardo himself has observed in chapters cxciv. cxcv. and Sir Joshua Reynolds has often put in practice with success.]

[Footnote 42: See chap. cclxv.]

[Footnote 43: See chap. cxcvi.]

[Footnote 44: He means here to say, that in proportion as the body interposed between the eye and the object is more or less transparent, the greater or less quantity of the colour of the body interposed will be communicated to the object.]

[Footnote 45: See the note to chap. cc.]

[Footnote 46: See the preceding chapter, and chap. cc.]

[Footnote 47: The appearance of motion is lessened according to the distance, in the same proportion as objects diminish in size.]

[Footnote 48: See chap. ccxvii. and ccxix.]

[Footnote 49: See chap. ccxv. and ccxix.]

[Footnote 50: This was intended to constitute a part of some book of Perspective, which we have not; but the rule here referred to will be found in chap. cccx. of the present work.]

[Footnote 51: See chap. ccxv. and ccxvii.]

[Footnote 52: No such work was ever published, nor, for any thing that appears, ever written.]

[Footnote 53: The French translation of 1716 has a note on this chapter, saying, that the invention of enamel painting found out since the time of Leonardo da Vinci, would better answer to the title of this chapter, and also be a better method of painting. I must beg leave, however, to dissent from this opinion, as the two kinds of painting are so different, that they cannot be compared. Leonardo treats of oil painting, but the other is vitrification. Leonardo is known to have spent a great deal of time in experiments, of which this is a specimen, and it may appear ridiculous to the practitioners of more modern date, as he does not enter more fully into a minute description of the materials, or the mode of employing them. The principle laid down in the text appears to me to be simply this: to make the oil entirely evaporate from the colours by the action of fire, and afterwards to prevent the action of the air by the means of a glass, which in itself is an excellent principle, but not applicable, any more than enamel painting to large works.]

[Footnote 54: It is evident that distemper or size painting is here meant.]

[Footnote 55: Indian ink.]

[Footnote 56: This rule is not without exception: see chap. ccxxxiv.]

[Footnote 57: See chap. ccxxxviii.]

[Footnote 58: See chap. ccxxxvii.]

[Footnote 59: See chapters ccxlvii. cclxxiv. in the present work. Probably they were intended to form a part of a distinct treatise, and to have been ranged as propositions in that, but at present they are not so placed.]

[Footnote 60: See chap. ccxlviii.]

[Footnote 61: See chap. cclxxiv.]

[Footnote 62: Although the author seems to have designed that this, and many other propositions to which he refers, should have formed a part of some regular work, and he has accordingly referred to them whenever he has mentioned them, by their intended numerical situation in that work, whatever it might be, it does not appear that he ever carried this design into execution. There are, however, several chapters in the present work, viz. ccxciii. cclxxxix. cclxxxv. ccxcv. in which the principle in the text is recognised, and which probably would have been transferred into the projected treatise, if he had ever drawn it up.]

[Footnote 63: The note on the preceding chapter is in a great measure applicable to this, and the proposition mentioned in the text is also to be found in chapter ccxlvii. of the present work.]

[Footnote 64: See the note on the chapter next but one preceding. The proposition in the text occurs in chap. ccxlvii. of the present work.]

[Footnote 65: Not in this work.]

[Footnote 66: I do not know a better comment on this passage than Felibien's Examination of Le Brun's Picture of the Tent of Darius. From this (which has been reprinted with an English translation, by Colonel Parsons in 1700, in folio) it will clearly appear, what the chain of connexion is between every colour there used, and its nearest neighbour, and consequently a rule may be formed from it with more certainty and precision than where the student is left to develope it for himself, from the mere inspection of different examples of colouring.]

[Footnote 67: See chap. ccxxiii. ccxxxvii. cclxxiv. cclxxxii. of the present work. We have before remarked, that the propositions so frequently referred to by the author, were never reduced into form, though apparently he intended a regular work in which they were to be included.]

[Footnote 68: No where in this work.]

[Footnote 69: This is evident in many of Vandyke's portraits, particularly of ladies, many of whom are dressed in black velvet; and this remark will in some measure account for the delicate fairness which he frequently gives to the female complexion.]

[Footnote 70: These propositions, any more than the others mentioned in different parts of this work, were never digested into a regular treatise, as was evidently intended by the author, and consequently are not to be found, except perhaps in some of the volumes of the author's manuscript collections.]

[Footnote 71: See chap. ccxciii. cccvii. cccviii.]

[Footnote 72: See chap. cclxxxvii.]

[Footnote 73: This book on perspective was never drawn up.]

[Footnote 74: See chap. ccxcii.]

[Footnote 75: See chap. ccxii. ccxlviii. cclv.]

[Footnote 76: There is no work of this author to which this can at present refer, but the principle is laid down in chapters cclxxxiv. cccvi. of the present treatise.]

[Footnote 77: See chapters cccvii. cccxxii.]

[Footnote 78: See chap. cxvi. cxxi. cccv.]

[Footnote 79: See chap. cccxiii. and cccxxiii.]

[Footnote 80: To our obtaining a correct idea of the magnitude and distance of any object seen from afar, it is necessary that we consider how much of distinctness an object loses at a distance (from the mere interposition of the air), as well as what it loses in size; and these two considerations must unite before we can decidedly pronounce as to its distance or magnitude. This calculation, as to distinctness, must be made upon the idea that the air is clear, as, if by any accident it is otherwise, we shall (knowing the proportion in which clear air dims a prospect) be led to conclude this farther off than it is, and, to justify that conclusion, shall suppose its real magnitude correspondent with the distance, at which from its degree of distinctness it appears to be. In the circumstance remarked in the text there is, however, a great deception; the fact is, that the colour and the minute parts of the object are lost in the fog, while the size of it is not diminished in proportion; and the eye being accustomed to see objects diminished in size at a great distance, supposes this to be farther off than it is, and consequently imagines it larger.]

[Footnote 81: This proposition, though undoubtedly intended to form a part of some future work, which never was drawn up, makes no part of the present.]

[Footnote 82: See chap. cccvii.]

[Footnote 83: Vide chap. ccxcii. ccciii.]

[Footnote 84: See chapter ccxcviii.]

[Footnote 85: This was probably to have been a part of some other work, but it does not occur in this.]

[Footnote 86: Cento braccia, or cubits. The Florence braccio is one foot ten inches seven eighths, English measure.]

[Footnote 87: Probably the Author here means yellow lilies, or fleurs de lis.]

[Footnote 88: That point is always found in the horizon, and is called the point of sight, or the vanishing point.]

[Footnote 89: See chap. cccxx.]

[Footnote 90: See chap. cccxvii.]

[Footnote 91: This position has been already laid down in chapter cxxiv. (and will also be found in chapter cccxlviii.); and the reader is referred to the note on that passage, which will also explain that in the text, for further illustration. It may, however, be proper to remark, that though the author has here supposed both objects conveyed to the eye by an angle of the same extent, they cannot, in fact, be so seen, unless one eye be shut; and the reason is this: if viewed with both eyes, there will be two points of sight, one in the centre of each eye; and the rays from each of these to the objects must of course be different, and will consequently form different angles.]

[Footnote 92: The braccio is one foot ten inches and seven eighths English measure.]

[Footnote 93: i.e. To be abridged according to the rules of perspective.]

[Footnote 94: See chap. cxxii.]

[Footnote 95: The whole of this chapter, like the next but one preceding, depends on the circumstance of there being in fact two points of sight, one in the centre of each eye, when an object is viewed with both eyes. In natural objects the effect which this circumstance produces is, that the rays from each point of sight, diverging as they extend towards the object, take in not only that, but some part also of the distance behind it, till at length, at a certain distance behind it, they cross each other; whereas, in a painted representation, there being no real distance behind the object, but the whole being a flat surface, it is impossible that the rays from the points of sight should pass beyond that flat surface; and as the object itself is on that flat surface, which is the real extremity of the view, the eyes cannot acquire a sight of any thing beyond.]

[Footnote 96: A well-known painter at Florence, contemporary with Leonardo da Vinci, who painted several altar-pieces and other public works.]

[Footnote 97: See chap. cxxiv. and cccxlviii.]

[Footnote 98: See chap. x.]

[Footnote 99: See chap. cci.]

[Footnote 100: Leonardo da Vinci was remarkably fond of this kind of invention, and is accused of having lost a great deal of time that way.]

[Footnote 101: The method here recommended, was the general and common practice at that time, and continued so with little, if any variation, till lately. But about thirty years ago, the late Mr. Bacon invented an entirely new method, which, as better answering the purpose, he constantly used, and from him others have also adopted it into practice.]

[Footnote 102: This may be a good method of dividing the figure for the purpose of reducing from large to small, or _vice versâ_; but it not being the method generally used by the painters for measuring their figures, as being too minute, this chapter was not introduced amongst those of general proportions.]

End of Project Gutenberg's A Treatise on Painting, by Leonardo Da Vinci