The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci Read Online Free PDF Page A

things—vouchsafe to enlighten me, I will treat
of Light; wherefore I will divide the present work into 3 Parts
[Footnote: 10. In the middle ages—for instance, by ROGER BACON, by
VITELLONE, with whose works Leonardo was certainly familiar, and by
all the writers of the Renaissance Perspective and Optics were not
regarded as distinct sciences. Perspective, indeed, is in its widest
application the science of seeing. Although to Leonardo the two
sciences were clearly separate, it is not so as to their names; thus
we find axioms in Optics under the heading Perspective. According to
this arrangement of the materials for the theoretical portion of the libro di pittura propositions in Perspective and in Optics stand
side by side or occur alternately. Although this particular chapter
deals only with Optics, it is not improbable that the words partir�
la presente opera in 3 parti may refer to the same division into
three sections which is spoken of in chapters 14 to 17.].
    The plan of the book on Painting (14—17).
    14.
ON THE THREE BRANCHES OF PERSPECTIVE.
    There are three branches of perspective; the first deals with the
reasons of the (apparent) diminution of objects as they recede from
the eye, and is known as Diminishing Perspective.—The second
contains the way in which colours vary as they recede from the eye.
The third and last is concerned with the explanation of how the
objects [in a picture] ought to be less finished in proportion as
they are remote (and the names are as follows):
    Linear Perspective. The Perspective of Colour. The Perspective of
Disappearance.
    [Footnote: 13. From the character of the handwriting I infer that
this passage was written before the year 1490.].
    15.
ON PAINTING AND PERSPECTIVE.
    The divisions of Perspective are 3, as used in drawing; of these,
the first includes the diminution in size of opaque objects; the
second treats of the diminution and loss of outline in such opaque
objects; the third, of the diminution and loss of colour at long
distances.
    [Footnote: The division is here the same as in the previous chapter
No. 14, and this is worthy of note when we connect it with the fact
that a space of about 20 years must have intervened between the
writing of the two passages.]
    16.
THE DISCOURSE ON PAINTING.
    Perspective, as bearing on drawing, is divided into three principal
sections; of which the first treats of the diminution in the size of
bodies at different distances. The second part is that which treats
of the diminution in colour in these objects. The third [deals with]
the diminished distinctness of the forms and outlines displayed by
the objects at various distances.
    17.
ON THE SECTIONS OF [THE BOOK ON] PAINTING.
    The first thing in painting is that the objects it represents should
appear in relief, and that the grounds surrounding them at different
distances shall appear within the vertical plane of the foreground
of the picture by means of the 3 branches of Perspective, which are:
the diminution in the distinctness of the forms of the objects, the
diminution in their magnitude; and the diminution in their colour.
And of these 3 classes of Perspective the first results from [the
structure of] the eye, while the other two are caused by the
atmosphere which intervenes between the eye and the objects seen by
it. The second essential in painting is appropriate action and a due
variety in the figures, so that the men may not all look like
brothers, &c.
    [Footnote: This and the two foregoing chapters must have been
written in 1513 to 1516. They undoubtedly indicate the scheme which
Leonardo wished to carry out in arranging his researches on
Perspective as applied to Painting. This is important because it is
an evidence against the supposition of H. LUDWIG and others, that
Leonardo had collected his principles of Perspective in one book so
early as before 1500; a Book which, according to the hypothesis,
must have been lost at a very early period, or destroyed possibly,
by the French