CodalSearch this book — or all of Codal…⌘K
nydus/The Notebooks of Leonardo da VinciPublic
Page 172 of 1234
Table of Contents

PROLEGOMENA AND GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK ON PAINTING

the vertical plane?.

[Footnote: This chapter, taken from another MS. may, as an exception, be placed here, as it refers to the same subject as the preceding section.]

On gradation of shadows (215. 216).

215.

Although the breadth and length of lights and shadow will be narrower and shorter in foreshortening, the quality and quantity of the light and shade is not increased nor diminished.

[3]The function of shade and light when diminished by foreshortening, will be to give shadow and to illuminate an object opposite, according to the quality and quantity in which they fall on the body.

[5]In proportion as a derived shadow is nearer to its penultimate extremities the deeper it will appear, g z beyond the intersection faces only the part of the shadow [marked] y z; this by intersection takes the shadow from m n but by direct line it takes the shadow a m hence it is twice as deep as g z. Y x, by intersection takes the shadow n o, but by direct line the shadow n m a, therefore x y is three times as dark as z g; x f, by intersection faces o b and by direct line o n m a, therefore we must say that the shadow between f x will be four times as dark as the shadow z g, because it faces four times as much shadow.

Let a b be the side where the primary shadow is, and b c the primary light, d will be the spot where it is intercepted,f g the derived shadow and f e the derived light.

And this must be at the beginning of the

172