A Treatise on Painting by da Vinci Leonardo, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. CONTRASTE, HARMONY, AND REFLEXES, IN REGARD TO COLOURS.
CONTRASTE, HARMONY, AND REFLEXES, IN REGARD TO COLOURS.
Chap. CCLXX.—Gradation in Painting.
What is fine is not always beautiful and good: I address this to such painters as are so attached to the beauty of colours, that they regret being obliged to give them almost imperceptible shadows, not considering the beautiful relief which figures acquire by a proper gradation and strength of shadows. Such persons may be compared to those speakers who in conversation make use of many fine words without meaning, which altogether scarcely form one good sentence.
Chap. CCLXXI.—How to assort Colours in such a Manner as that they may add Beauty to each other.
If you mean that the proximity of one colour should give beauty to another that terminates near it, observe the rays of the sun in the composition of the rainbow, the colours of which are generated by the falling rain, when each drop in its descent takes every colour of that bow, as is demonstrated in its place.
If you mean to represent great darkness, it must be done by contrasting it with great light; on the contrary, if you want to produce great brightness, you must oppose to it a very dark shade: so a pale yellow will cause red to appear more beautiful than if opposed to a purple colour.
There is another rule, by observing which, though you do not increase the natural beauty of the colours, yet by bringing them together they may give additional grace to each other, as green placed near red, while the effect would be quite the reverse, if placed near blue.
Harmony and grace are also produced by a judicious arrangement of colours, such as blue with pale yellow or white, and the like; as will be noticed in its place.
Chap. CCLXXII.—Of detaching the Figures.
Let the colours of which the draperies of your figures are composed, be such as to form a pleasing variety, to distinguish one from the other; and although, for the sake of harmony, they should be of the same nature, they must not stick together, but vary in point of light, according to the distance and interposition of the air between them. By the same rule, the outlines are to be more precise, or lost, in proportion to their distance or proximity.
Chap. CCLXXIII.—Of the Colour of Reflexes.
All reflected colours are less brilliant and strong, than those which receive a direct light, in the same proportion as there is between the light of a body and the cause of that light.
Chap. CCLXXIV.—What Body will be the most strongly tinged with the Colour of any other Object.
An opake surface will partake most of the genuine colour of the body nearest to it, because a great quantity of the species of colour will be conveyed to it; whereas such colour would be broken and disturbed if coming from a more distant object.
Chap. CCLXXV.—Of Reflexes.
Reflexes will partake, more or less, both of the colour of the object which produces them, and of the colour of that object on which they are produced, in proportion as this latter body is of a smoother or more polished surface, than that by which they are produced.
Chap. CCLXXVI.—Of the Surface of all shadowed Bodies.
The surface of any opake body placed in shadow, will participate of the colour of any other object which reflects the light upon it. This is very evident; for if such bodies were deprived of light in the space between them and the other bodies, they could not shew either shape or colour. We shall conclude then, that if the opake body be yellow, and that which reflects the light blue, the part reflected will be green, because green is composed of blue and yellow.
Chap. CCLXXVII.—That no reflected Colour is simple, but is mixed with the Nature of the other Colours.
No colour reflected upon the surface of another body, will tinge that surface with its own colour alone, but will be mixed by the concurrence of other colours also reflected on the same spot. Let us suppose A to be of a yellow colour, which is reflected on the convex C O E, and that the blue colour B be reflected on the same place. I say that a mixture of the blue and yellow colours will tinge the convex surface; and that, if the ground be white, it will produce a green reflexion, because it is proved that a mixture of blue and yellow produces a very fine green.
Chap. CCLXXVIII.—Of the Colour of Lights and Reflexes.
When two lights strike upon an opake body, they can vary only in two ways; either they are equal in strength, or they are not. If they be equal, they may still vary in two other ways, that is, by the equality or inequality of their brightness; they will be equal, if their distance be the same; and unequal, if it be otherwise. The object placed at an equal distance, between two equal lights, in point both of colour and brightness, may still be enlightened by them in two different ways, either equally on each side, or unequally. It will be equally enlightened by them, when the space which remains round the lights shall be equal in colour, in degree of shade, and in brightness. It will be unequally enlightened by them when the spaces happen to be of different degrees of darkness.
Chap. CCLXXIX.—Why reflected Colours seldom partake of the Colour of the Body where they meet.
It happens very seldom that the reflexes are of the same colour with the body from which they proceed, or with that upon which they meet. To exemplify this, let the convex body D F G E be of a yellow colour, and the body B C, which reflects its colour on it, blue; the part of the convex surface which is struck by that reflected light, will take a green tinge, being B C, acted on by the natural light of the air, or the sun.
Chap. CCLXXX.—The Reflexes of Flesh Colours.
The lights upon the flesh colours, which are reflected by the light striking upon another flesh-coloured body, are redder and more lively than any other part of the human figure; and that happens according to the third proposition of the second book, which says, the surface of any opake body participates of the colour of the object which reflects the light, in proportion as it is near to or remote from it, and also in proportion to the size of it; because, being large, it prevents the variety of colours in smaller objects round it, from interfering with, and discomposing the principal colour, which is nearer. Nevertheless it does not prevent its participating more of the colour of a small object near it, than of a large one more remote. See the sixth proposition of perspective, which says, that large objects may be situated at such a distance as to appear less than small ones that are near.
Chap. CCLXXXI.—Of the Nature of Comparison.
Black draperies will make the flesh of the human figure appear whiter than in reality it is; and white draperies, on the contrary, will make it appear darker. Yellow will render it higher coloured, while red will make it pale.
Chap. CCLXXXII.—Where the Reflexes are seen.
Of all reflexions of the same shape, size, and strength, that will be more or less strong, which terminates on a ground more or less dark.
The surface of those bodies will partake most of the colour of the object that reflects it, which receive that reflexion by the most nearly equal angles.
Of the colours of objects reflected upon any opposite surface by equal angles, that will be the most distinct which has its reflecting ray the shortest.
Of all colours, reflected under equal angles, and at equal distance upon the opposite body, those will be the strongest, which come reflected by the lightest coloured body.
That object will reflect its own colour most precisely on the opposite object, which has not round it any colour that clashes with its own; and consequently that reflected colour will be most confused which takes its origin from a variety of bodies of different colours.
That colour which is nearest the opposed object, will tinge it the most strongly; and vice versâ: let the painter, therefore, in his reflexes on the human body, particularly on the flesh colour, mix some of the colour of the drapery which comes nearest to it; but not pronounce it too distinctly, if there be not good reason for it.
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