The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci Complete

by Leonardo da Vinci

569. Whenever a figure is placed at a considerable distance you lose first the distinctness of the smallest parts; while the larger parts are left to the last, losing all distinctness of detail and outline; and what remains is an oval or spherical figure with confused edges.

OF THE WAY TO LEARN TO COMPOSE FIGURES [IN GROUPS] IN HISTORICAL PICTURES. When you have well learnt perspective and have by heart the parts and forms of objects, you must go about, and constantly, as you go, observe, note and consider the circumstances and behaviour of men in talking, quarrelling or laughing or fighting together: the action of the men themselves and the actions of the bystanders, who separate them or who look on.

And take a note of them with slight strokes thus, in a little book which you should always carry with you. And it should be of tinted paper, that it may not be rubbed out, but change the old [when full] for a new one; since these things should not be rubbed out but preserved with great care; for the forms, and positions of objects are so infinite that the memory is incapable of retaining them, wherefore keep these [sketches] as your guides and masters.

580. The sorest misfortune is when your views are in advance of your work.

598. The motions of men must be such as suggest their dignity or their baseness.

On varnishes [or powders] (635-637).

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.

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...

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 ...

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.

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;

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?

657. OF PAINTING. Men and words are ready made, and you, O Painter, if you do not know how to make your figures move, are like an orator who knows not how to use his words.

658. As soon as the poet ceases to represent in words what exists in nature, he in fact ceases to resemble the painter; for if the poet, leaving such representation, proceeds to describe the flowery and flattering speech of the figure, which he wishes to make the speaker, he then is an orator and no longer a poet nor a painter. And if he speaks of the heavens he becomes an astrologer, and philosopher; and a theologian, if he discourses of nature or God. But, if he restricts himself to the description of objects, he would enter the lists against the painter, if with words he could satisfy the eye as the painter does.

659. Though you may be able to tell or write the exact description of forms, the painter can so depict them that they will appear alive, with the shadow and light which show the expression of a face; which you cannot acco...

as was seen in the painters after the Romans who always imitated each other and so their art constantly declined from age to age.

Allegorical representations (674—678).

676. Pleasure and Pain represent as twins, since there never is one without the other; and as if they were united back to back, since they are contrary to each other.

677.

678.

682. Obstacles cannot crush me Every obstacle yields to stern resolve He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

688. On this side Adam and Eve on the other; O misery of mankind, of how many things do you make yourself the slave for money!

_IV. Ecclesiastical Architecture.

V. ON THE RESISTANCE OF BEAMS. 793. That angle will offer the greatest resistance which is most acute, and the most obtuse will be the weakest.

796. A general introduction I wish to work miracles;—it may be that I shall possess less than other men of more peaceful lives, or than those who want to grow rich in a day. I may live for a long time in great poverty, as always happens, and to all eternity will happen, to alchemists, the would-be creators of gold and silver, and to engineers who would have dead water stir itself into life and perpetual motion,

Plans and suggestions for the arrangement of materials (797-802).

Physiological problems (814. 815).

815. The tears come from the heart and not from the brain.

III. PHYSIOLOGY.

Advantages in the structure of the eye in certain animals (828-831).

Remarks on the organs of speech (832. 833).

Miscellaneous physiological observations (840-842).

Some notes on medicine (851-855).

OF THE MOON.

Of time and its divisions (916-918).

_XVI. Physical Geography.

920. DIVISIONS OF THE BOOK. Book 1 of water in itself. Book 2 of the sea. Book 3 of subterranean rivers. Book 4 of rivers. Book 5 of the nature of the abyss. Book 6 of the obstacles. Book 7 of gravels. Book 8 of the surface of water. Book 9 of the things placed therein. Book 10 of the repairing of rivers. Book 11 of conduits. Book 12 of canals. Book 13 of machines turned by water. Book 14 of raising water. Book 15 of matters worn away by water.

VI. GEOLOGICAL PROBLEMS.

I. ITALY. Canals in connection with the Arno (1001-1008). 1001.

THE FORCE OF THE VACUUM FORMED IN A MOMENT.

Remarks on natural phenomena in and near Milan (1021. 1022).

Notes on places in Central Italy, visited in 1502 (1034-1054).

IV. THE LEVANT.

The Nile (1093-1098).

Customs of Asiatic Nations (1099. 1100).

Rhodes (1101. 1102).

1112. Men born in hot countries love the night because it refreshes them and have a horror of light because it burns them; and therefore they are of the colour of night, that is black. And in cold countries it is just the contrary.

On naval warfare (1115. 1116).