Notebooks (33 page)
Authors: Leonardo da Vinci,Irma Anne Richter,Thereza Wells
Tags: #History, #Fiction, #General, #European, #Art, #Renaissance, #Leonardo;, #Leonardo, #da Vinci;, #1452-1519, #Individual artists, #Art Monographs, #Drawing By Individual Artists, #Notebooks; sketchbooks; etc, #Individual Artist, #History - Renaissance, #Renaissance art, #Individual Painters - Renaissance, #Drawing & drawings, #Drawing, #Techniques - Drawing, #Individual Artists - General, #Individual artists; art monographs, #Art & Art Instruction, #Techniques
How to increase your talent and stimulate various inventions
Look at walls splashed with a number of stains, or stones of various mixed colours. If you have to invent some scene, you can see there resemblances to a number of landscapes, adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, great plains, valleys and hills, in various ways. Also you can see various battles, and lively postures of strange figures, expressions on faces, costumes and an infinite number of things, which you can reduce to good integrated form. This happens on such walls and varicoloured stones, (which act) like the sound of bells, in whose pealing you can find every name and word that you can imagine.
Do not despise my opinion, when I remind you that it should not be hard for you to stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud or like places, in which, if you consider them well, you may find really marvellous ideas. The mind of the painter is stimulated to new discoveries, the composition of battles of animals and men, various compositions of landscapes and monstrous things, such as devils and similar things, which may bring you honour, because by indistinct things the mind is stimulated to new inventions.
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The way to represent a battle
Represent first the smoke of the artillery, mingled in the air with the dust tossed up by the movement of horses and combatants. And this mixture you must express thus: the dust, being a thing of the earth, has weight; and although by reason of its fineness it may easily rise and mingle with the air, will nevertheless readily fall down again. It is the first part that rises highest; hence that part will be least seen and will seem almost of the colour of the air. The smoke which is mingled with the dust-laden air will, as it rises to a certain height, look like a dark cloud; and at the top the smoke will be more distinctly visible than the dust. The smoke will assume a bluish tinge, and the dust will keep to its colour. This mixture of air, smoke, and dust will look much lighter from the side whence the light comes than from the opposite side. The more the combatants are in this turmoil the less will they be seen, and the less will be the contrast between their lights and shadows. You should give a ruddy glow to the faces and figures and the air around them, and to the gunners and those near them. And this glow will grow fainter as it is further remote from its cause. The figures which are between you and the light, if far away, will appear dark against a light background, and the nearer the legs are to the ground the less will they be visible, for there the dust is coarsest and densest. And if you make horses galloping away from the throng, make the little clouds of dust distant from each other as is the space between the strides made by the horse, and that cloud which is furthest away from the horse should be least visible, for it should be high and spread out and thin, and the nearer should be more conspicuous, smaller and denser. Let the air be full of arrows in every direction, some shooting upwards, some falling, some flying level. The balls from the guns must have a train of smoke following their course. The figures in the foreground you must make with dust on their hair and eyebrows and on such other flat places likely to retain it. You will make the conquerors rushing onwards with their hair and other light things streaming in the wind, with brows bent down; and they should be thrusting forward the opposite limbs; that is if a man advances the right foot, the left arm should also come forward. And if you make anyone fallen you must make the mark where he has slipped on the dust turned into blood-stained mire; and round about in the half-liquid earth show the print of the trampling of men and horses who have passed that way. Make a horse dragging the dead body of his master, and leaving behind him in the dust and mud the track where the body was dragged along. Make the conquered and beaten pale, with brows raised and knit, and the skin above their brows furrowed with pain; the sides of the nose with wrinkles going in an arch from the nostrils and ending where the eye begins; the nostrils drawn high up—which is the cause of these lines; the lips arched displaying the upper teeth; and the teeth apart as with crying out in lamentation. Show someone using one hand as a shield for his terrified eyes with the palm turned towards the enemy; while the other rests on the ground to support his half-raised body. Represent others shouting with their mouths wide open, and running away. Put all sorts of arms between the feet of the combatants, such as broken shields, lances, broken swords, and other such objects. Make the dead partly or entirely covered with dust, which is mingled with the oozing blood and changed into crimson mire, and let the blood be seen by its colour flowing in a sinuous stream from the corpse to the dust. Others in the death agony grinding their teeth, rolling their eyes, with their fists clenched against their bodies, and the legs distorted. Some might be shown disarmed and beaten down by the enemy turning upon the foe, with teeth and nails to take a cruel and bitter revenge. You might see a riderless horse charging with mane streaming in the wind among the enemy and doing him great mischief with his hoofs. You may see some maimed warrior fallen on the ground, covering himself with his shield, and the enemy bending down over him and trying to give him the death stroke. There might also be seen a number of men fallen in a heap on top of a dead horse. You will see some of the victors leaving the combat and issuing from the crowd, and with both hands wiping their eyes and cheeks covered with mud caused by smarting of their eyes from the dust.
You will see the squadrons of the reserves standing full of hope and watchful with eyebrows raised, shading them with their hands peering into the thick and confusing mist in readiness for the command of the captain; and so too the captain, with staff raised, hurrying to the reserves, pointing out to them the quarter where they are needed. And show a river wherein horses are galloping stirring up the water all around with turbulent waves, and foam, and broken water, leaping into the air and over the legs and bodies of the horses. And see to it that you paint no level spot of ground that is not trampled with blood.
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The way to represent Night
That which is entirely bereft of light is all darkness; since such is the condition of night, if you wish to represent a scene herein, arrange to introduce a great fire. Then the thing which is nearest to this fire will be most tinged with its colour. For whatever is nearest to the element partakes most of its nature; and making the fire a red colour you must make all the objects illuminated by it of a ruddy hue; while those that are further from the fire are more tinted by the black hue of the night. The figures which are seen against the fire look dark in the glare of the fire-light because that part of the object which you see is tinged by the darkness of the night, and not by the fire; those who stand by the sides should be half dark and half and half in ruddy light; while those visible beyond the edges of the flames will be all lit up by the ruddy glow against a black background. As for their gestures, make those who are near it screen themselves with their hands and cloaks as a defence against the intense heat, and with faces turned away as though about to retire. Of those further off represent a great number as raising their hands to screen their eyes hurt by the intolerable glare.
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Describe a wind on land and at sea.
Describe a storm of rain.
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How to represent a tempest
If you wish to represent a tempest consider and arrange its effects when the wind blowing over the face of the sea and of the land lifts and carries with it everything that is not fixed firmly in the general mass. And in order to represent this tempest you must first show the clouds riven and torn and flying with the wind, together with storms of sand blown up from the seashores, and boughs and leaves swept up by the strength and fury of the gale and scattered with other light objects through the air. Trees and plants should be bent to the ground, almost as if they would follow the course of the winds, with their branches twisted out of their natural growth and their leaves tossed and inverted. Of the men who are there, some should have fallen and be lying wrapped round by their garments, and almost indistinguishable on account of the dust, while those who remain standing should be behind some tree with their arms thrown round it that the wind may not tear them away; others should be shown crouching, their hands over their eyes because of the dust, their clothes and hair streaming in the wind. Let the sea be wild and tempestuous, and full of foam whirled between the big waves, and the wind should carry the finer spray through the stormy air resembling a dense and all-enveloping mist. Of the ships that are there, some should be shown with sails rent and the shreds fluttering in the air in company with the broken ropes and some of the masts split and fallen, and the vessel itself lying disabled and broken by the fury of the waves, with the men shrieking and clinging to the fragments of the wreck. Make the clouds driven by the impetuous winds, hurled against the high mountain tops, and there wreathing and eddying like waves that beat upon rocks; the very air should strike terror through the deep darkness caused by the dust and mist and heavy clouds.
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DESCRIPTION OF THE DELUGE
The underlying theme is man’s impotence when face to face with the relentless laws of nature. Leonardo is inspired by his study of the movement of water in mountain valleys, on watercourses, and by the seaside to write a consecutive narrative consisting of various scenes, vividly portrayed, following one upon the other as effect follows cause. As a torrent rises from a small source, so here a seemingly small accident on a mountainside gradually leads to a catastrophe whereby the whole landscape is finally submerged. He may have wanted to show how the destruction of the world, foretold in the Apocalypse, and believed to be impending, may be consummated.
The original manuscript is illustrated with marginal pen drawings of waves, eddies, waterfalls, etc., to make clearer the description of the movement
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First let there be presented the summit of a rugged mountain with valleys that surround its base, and on its sides let the surface of the soil be seen to slide together with the little roots of small shrubs; and leaving bare a great portion of the surrounding rocks. Descending in devastation from these precipices let it pursue its headlong course striking and laying bare the twisted and gnarled roots of the great trees overturning them in ruin; and let the mountains as they become bare reveal the deep fissures made in them by ancient earthquakes; and let the bases of the mountains be in great part covered and clad with debris of shrubs which have fallen from the sides of the lofty mountain peaks; and let these be mingled with mud, roots, branches of trees with different kinds of leaves thrust in among the mud and earth and stones. And let the fragments of some of the mountains descend into the depth of some valley and there form a bank to the swollen waters of its river; which having already burst its banks is rushing on with enormous waves, striking and destroying the walls of the cities and farms of the valley. And let the ruins of the high buildings of these cities throw up much dust rising up in shapes of smoke or wreathing clouds against the descending rain. And as great masses of debris falling from the high mountains or large buildings strike the waters of the big lakes, great quantities of water rebound in the air in the opposite direction; that is to say the angle of reflection will be equal to the angle of incidence. Of the objects borne along by the currents of the waters, that will appear at a greater distance from the opposite banks which is heavier or of larger bulk. But the swollen waters should be sweeping round the lake which confines them and striking with whirling eddies against the different obstacles, and leaping up into the air in muddy foam; then falling back and causing the beaten water to dash up again into the air. And the circling waves which recede from the place of concussion are impelled across the course of other circling waves which move in a contrary direction and after striking against these they rise up into the air without becoming detached from their base.
And where the water issues from the lake the spent waves are seen spreading out towards the outlet; thence the water falling or descending through the air acquires weight and impetus and on striking the water below it penetrates and tears it open and drives down in fury to reach its depth; and then recoiling, it leaps up again to the surface of the lake, accompanied by the air that has been submerged with it; and this air remains in the foam mingled with logs and other things lighter than the water; and around these are formed the beginnings of waves which increase the more in circumference as they acquire more movement; and this movement makes them lower in proportion as they acquire a wider base; and therefore they are little in evidence as they die away. But if the waves rebound against various objects they then leap back against the approach of the other waves observing the same law of development in their curve as they have already shown in their original movement. The rain as it falls from the clouds is of the same colour as these clouds, that is on its shaded side, unless indeed the sun’s rays should penetrate there, in which case the rain will appear less dark than the cloud. And if the great weight of the debris of the huge mountains or of big buildings strike in their descent the great pools of water, then a great quantity of water will rebound in the air and its course will be in the opposite direction to that of the substance which struck the water; that is to say the angle of reflection will be equal to the angle of incidence. Of the objects borne along by the current that which is heavier, of larger bulk, will keep at a greater distance from the two opposite banks. The water in the eddies revolves more swiftly in proportion as it is nearer to their centre. The crests of the waves of the sea fall forward to their bases beating with friction on the bubbles which form their face; and by this friction the falling water is ground into minute particles and becomes converted into a dense mist and is mingled with the gale in the manner of wreathing smoke and winding clouds and at last rises into the air and is converted into clouds. But the rain which falls through the air, being buffeted and tossed by the currents of the winds becomes rare or dense according to rarity or density of these winds, and thus there is generated in the atmosphere a flood of transparent clouds which is formed by the aforesaid rain and is seen through the lines made by the falling rain which is near the eye of the spectator.
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