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nydus/The Notebooks of Leonardo da VinciPublic
Page 165 of 1234
Table of Contents

PROLEGOMENA AND GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK ON PAINTING

a bright nature with a flat and semi opaque surface which, when the light strikes upon them, throw it back again, like the rebound of a ball, to the former object.

WHERE THERE CAN BE NO REFLECTED LIGHTS.

All dense bodies have their surfaces occupied by various degrees of light and shade. The lights are of two kinds, one called original, the other borrowed. Original light is that which is inherent in the flame of fire or the light of the sun or of the atmosphere. Borrowed light will be reflected light; but to return to the promised definition: I say that this luminous reverberation is not produced by those portions of a body which are turned towards darkened objects, such as shaded spots, fields with grass of various height, woods whether green or bare; in which, though that side of each branch which is turned towards the original

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