The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Leonardo Da Vinci [interesting novels to read TXT] 📗

same instant and extends his arm with the bow and releases the string. And if he dexterously does every thing at once it will go a very long way.

 

386.

 

When two men are at the opposite ends of a plank that is balanced, and if they are of equal weight, and if one of them wants to make a leap into the air, then his leap will be made down from his end of the plank and the man will never go up again but must remain in his place till the man at the other end dashes up the board.

[Footnote: See Pl. XXIV, No. 3.]

 

387.

 

Of delivering a blow to the right or left.

[Footnote: Four sketches on Pl. XXIV, No. 1 belong to this passage. The rest of the sketches and notes on that page are of a miscellaneous nature.]

 

388.

 

Why an impetus is not spent at once [but diminishes] gradually in some one direction? [Footnote 1: The paper has been damaged at the end of line 1.] The impetus acquired in the line a b c d is spent in the line d e but not so completely but that some of its force remains in it and to this force is added the momentum in the line d e with the force of the motive power, and it must follow than the impetus multiplied by the blow is greater that the simple impetus produced by the momentum d e.

[Footnote 8: The sketch No. 2 on Pl. XXIV stands, in the original, between lines 7 and 8. Compare also the sketches on Pl. LIV.] A man who has to deal a great blow with his weapon prepares himself with all his force on the opposite side to that where the spot is which he is to hit; and this is because a body as it gains in velocity gains in force against the object which impedes its motion.

On hair falling down in curls.

 

389.

 

Observe the motion of the surface of the water which resembles that of hair, and has two motions, of which one goes on with the flow of the surface, the other forms the lines of the eddies; thus the water forms eddying whirlpools one part of which are due to the impetus of the principal current and the other to the incidental motion and return flow.

[Footnote: See Pl. XXV. Where also the text of this passage is given in facsimile.]

On draperies (390—392).

 

390.

 

OF THE NATURE OF THE FOLDS IN DRAPERY.

That part of a fold which is farthest from the ends where it is confined will fall most nearly in its natural form.

Every thing by nature tends to remain at rest. Drapery, being of equal density and thickness on its wrong side and on its right, has a tendency to lie flat; therefore when you give it a fold or plait forcing it out of its flatness note well the result of the constraint in the part where it is most confined; and the part which is farthest from this constraint you will see relapses most into the natural state; that is to say lies free and flowing.

EXAMPLE.

[Footnote 13: a c sia. In the original text b is written instead of c—an evident slip of the pen.] Let a b c be the fold of the drapery spoken of above, a c will be the places where this folded drapery is held fast. I maintain that the part of the drapery which is farthest from the plaited ends will revert most to its natural form.

Therefore, b being farthest from a and c in the fold a b c it will be wider there than anywhere else.

[Footnote: See Pl. XXVIII, No. 6, and compare the drawing from Windsor Pl. XXX for farther illustration of what is here stated.]

 

391.

 

OF SMALL FOLDS IN DRAPERIES.

How figures dressed in a cloak should not show the shape so much as that the cloak looks as if it were next the flesh; since you surely cannot wish the cloak to be next the flesh, for you must suppose that between the flesh and the cloak there are other garments which prevent the forms of the limbs appearing distinctly through the cloak. And those limbs which you allow to be seen you must make thicker so that the other garments may appear to be under the cloak. But only give something of the true thickness of the limbs to a nymph [Footnote 9: Una nifa. Compare the beautiful drawing of a Nymph, in black chalk from the Windsor collection, Pl. XXVI.] or an angel, which are represented in thin draperies, pressed and clinging to the limbs of the figures by the action of the wind.

 

392.

 

You ought not to give to drapery a great confusion of many folds, but rather only introduce them where they are held by the hands or the arms; the rest you may let fall simply where it is its nature to flow; and do not let the nude forms be broken by too many details and interrupted folds. How draperies should be drawn from nature: that is to say if youwant to represent woollen cloth draw the folds from that; and if it is to be silk, or fine cloth or coarse, or of linen or of crape, vary the folds in each and do not represent dresses, as many do, from models covered with paper or thin leather which will deceive you greatly.

[Footnote: The little pen and ink drawing from Windsor (W. 102), given on Pl. XXVIII, No. 7, clearly illustrates the statement made at the beginning of this passage; the writing of the cipher 19 on the same page is in Leonardo’s hand; the cipher 21 is certainly not.]

VIII.

Botany for Painters and Elements of Landscape Painting.

The chapters composing this portion of the work consist of observations on Form, Light and Shade in Plants, and particularly in Trees summed up in certain general rules by which the author intends to guide the artist in the pictorial representation of landscape.

With these the first principles of a Theory of Landscape painting are laid down—a theory as profoundly thought out in its main lines as it is lucidly worked out in its details. In reading these chapters the conviction is irresistible that such a Botany for painters is or ought to be of similar importance in the practice of painting as the principles of the Proportions and Movements of the human figure i. e. Anatomy for painters.

There can be no doubt that Leonardo, in laying down these rules, did not intend to write on Botany in the proper scientific sense—his own researches on that subject have no place here; it need only be observed that they are easily distinguished by their character and contents from those which are here collected and arranged under the title ‘Botany for painters’. In some cases where this division might appear doubtful,—as for instance in No. 402—_the Painter is directly addressed and enjoined to take the rule to heart as of special importance in his art._

The original materials are principally derived from MS. G, in which we often find this subject treated on several pages in succession without any of that intermixture of other matters, which is so frequent in Leonardo’s writings. This MS., too, is one of the latest; when it was written, the great painter was already more than sixty years of age, so we can scarcely doubt that he regarded all he wrote as his final views on the subject. And the same remark applies to the chapters from MSS. E and M which were also written between 1513—15.

For the sake of clearness, however, it has been desirable to sacrifice—with few exceptions—the original order of the passages as written, though it was with much reluctance and only after long hesitation that I resigned myself to this necessity. Nor do I mean to impugn the logical connection of the author’s ideas in his MS.; but it will be easily understood that the sequence of disconnected notes, as they occurred to Leonardo and were written down from time to time, might be hardly satisfactory as a systematic arrangement of his principles. The reader will find in the Appendix an exact account of the order of the chapters in the original MS. and from the data there given can restore them at will. As the materials are here arranged, the structure of the tree as regards the growth of the branches comes first (394-411) and then the insertion of the leaves on the stems (412-419). Then follow the laws of Light and Shade as applied, first, to the leaves (420-434), and, secondly, to the whole tree and to groups of trees (435-457). After the remarks on the Light and Shade in landscapes generally (458-464), we find special observations on that of views of towns and buildings (465-469). To the theory of Landscape Painting belong also the passages on the effect of Wind on Trees (470-473) and on the Light and Shade of Clouds (474-477), since we find in these certain comparisons with the effect of Light and Shade on Trees (e. g.: in No. 476, 4. 5; and No. 477, 9. 12). The chapters given in the Appendix Nos. 478 and 481 have hardly any connection with the subjects previously treated.

Classification of trees.

 

393.

 

TREES.

Small, lofty, straggling, thick, that is as to foliage, dark, light, russet, branched at the top; some directed towards the eye, some downwards; with white stems; this transparent in the air, that not; some standing close together, some scattered.

The relative thickness of the branches to the trunk (393—396).

 

394.

 

All the branches of a tree at every stage of its height when put together are equal in thickness to the trunk [below them].

All the branches of a water [course] at every stage of its course, if they are of equal rapidity, are equal to the body of the main stream.

 

395.

 

Every year when the boughs of a plant [or tree] have made an end of maturing their growth, they will have made, when put together, a thickness equal to that of the main stem; and at every stage of its ramification you will find the thickness of the said main stem; as: i k, g h, e f, c d, a b, will always be equal to each other; unless the tree is pollard—if so the rule does not hold good.

All the branches have a direction which tends to the centre of the tree m.

[Footnote: The two sketches of leafless trees one above another on the left hand side of Pl. XXVII, No. 1, belong to this passage.]

 

396.

 

If the plant n grows to the thickness shown at m, its branches will correspond [in thickness] to the junction a b in consequence of the growth inside as well as outside.

The branches of trees or plants have a twist wherever a minor branch is given off; and this giving off the branch forms a fork; this said fork occurs between two angles of which the largest will be that which is on the side of the larger branch, and in proportion, unless accident has spoilt it.

[Footnote: The sketches illustrating this are on the right hand side of PI. XXVII, No. I, and the text is also given there in facsimile.]

 

397.

 

There is no boss on branches which has not been produced by some branch which