If you condemn painting, which is the only imitator of all visible
works of nature, you will certainly despise a subtle invention which
brings philosophy and subtle speculation to the consideration of the
nature of all forms--seas and plains, trees, animals, plants and
flowers--which are surrounded by shade and light. And this is true
knowledge and the legitimate issue of nature; for painting is born
of nature--or, to speak more correctly, we will say it is the
grandchild of nature; for all visible things are produced by nature,
and these her children have given birth to painting. Hence we may
justly call it the grandchild of nature and related to God.
Painting is superior to poetry (653. 654).
653.
THAT PAINTING SURPASSES ALL HUMAN WORKS BY THE SUBTLE CONSIDERATIONS
BELONGING TO IT.
The eye, which is called the window of the soul, is the principal
means by which the central sense can most completely and abundantly
appreciate the infinite works of nature; and the ear is the second,
which acquires dignity by hearing of the things the eye has seen. If
you, historians, or poets, or mathematicians had not seen things
with your eyes you could not report of them in writing. And if you,
0 poet, tell a story with your pen, the painter with his brush can
tell it more easily, with simpler completeness and less tedious to
be understood. And if you call painting dumb poetry, the painter may
call poetry blind painting. Now which is the worse defect? to be
blind or dumb? Though the poet is as free as the painter in the
invention of his fictions they are not so satisfactory to men as
paintings; for, though poetry is able to describe forms, actions and
places in words, the painter deals with the actual similitude of the
forms, in order to represent them. Now tell me which is the nearer
to the actual man: the name of man or the image of the man. The name
of man differs in different countries, but his form is never changed
but by death.
654.
And if the poet gratifies the sense by means of the ear, the painter
does so by the eye--the worthier sense; but I will say no more of
this but that, if a good painter represents the fury of a battle,
and if a poet describes one, and they are both together put before
the public, you will see where most of the spectators will stop, to
which they will pay most attention, on which they will bestow most
praise, and which will satisfy them best. Undoubtedly painting being
by a long way the more intelligible and beautiful, will please most.
Write up the name of God [Christ] in some spot and setup His image
opposite and you will see which will be most reverenced. Painting
comprehends in itself all the forms of nature, while you have
nothing but words, which are not universal as form is, and if you
have the effects of the representation, we have the representation
of the effects. Take a poet who describes the beauty of a lady to
her lover and a painter who represents her and you will see to which
nature guides the enamoured critic. Certainly the proof should be
allowed to rest on the verdict of experience. You have ranked
painting among the mechanical arts but, in truth, if painters were
as apt at praising their own works in writing as you are, it would
not lie under the stigma of so base a name. If you call it
mechanical because it is, in the first place, manual, and that it is
the hand which produces what is to be found in the imagination, you
too writers, who set down manually with the pen what is devised in
your mind. And if you say it is mechanical because it is done for
money, who falls into this error--if error it can be called--more
than you? If you lecture in the schools do you not go to whoever
pays you most? Do you do any work without pay? Still, I do not say
this as blaming such views, for every form of labour looks for its
reward. And if a poet should say: "I will invent a fiction with a
great purpose," the painter can do the same, as Apelles painted
Calumny. If you were to say that poetry is more eternal, I say the
works of a coppersmith are more eternal still, for time preserves
them longer than your works or ours; nevertheless they have not much
imagination [29]. And a picture, if painted on copper with enamel
colours may be yet more permanent. We, by our arts may be called the
grandsons of God. If poetry deals with moral philosophy, painting
deals with natural philosophy. Poetry describes the action of the
mind, painting considers what the mind may effect by the motions [of
the body]. If poetry can terrify people by hideous fictions,
painting can do as much by depicting the same things in action.
Supposing that a poet applies himself to represent beauty, ferocity,
or a base, a foul or a monstrous thing, as against a painter, he may
in his ways bring forth a variety of forms; but will the painter not
satisfy more? are there not pictures to be seen, so like the actual
things, that they deceive men and animals?
Painting is superior to sculpture (655. 656).
655.
THAT SCULPTURE IS LESS INTELLECTUAL THAN PAINTING, AND LACKS MANY
CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE.
I myself, having exercised myself no less in sculpture than in
painting and doing both one and the other in the same degree, it
seems to me that I can, without invidiousness, pronounce an opinion
as to which of the two is of the greatest merit and difficulty and
perfection. In the first place sculpture requires a certain light,
that is from above, a picture carries everywhere with it its own
light and shade. Thus sculpture owes its importance to light and
shade, and the sculptor is aided in this by the nature, of the
relief which is inherent in it, while the painter whose art
expresses the accidental aspects of nature, places his effects in
the spots where nature must necessarily produce them. The sculptor
cannot diversify his work by the various natural colours of objects;
painting is not defective in any particular. The sculptor when he
uses perspective cannot make it in any way appear true; that of the
painter can appear like a hundred miles beyond the picture itself.
Their works have no aerial perspective whatever, they cannot
represent transparent bodies, they cannot represent luminous bodies,
nor reflected lights, nor lustrous bodies--as mirrors and the like
polished surfaces, nor mists, nor dark skies, nor an infinite number
of things which need not be told for fear of tedium. As regards the
power of resisting time, though they have this resistance [Footnote
19: From what is here said as to painting on copper it is very
evident that Leonardo was not acquainted with the method of painting
in oil on thin copper plates, introduced by the Flemish painters of
the XVIIth century. J. LERMOLIEFF has already pointed out that in
the various collections containing pictures by the great masters of
the Italian Renaissance, those painted on copper (for instance the
famous reading Magdalen in the Dresden Gallery) are the works of a
much later date (see _Zeitschrift fur bildende Kunst_. Vol. X pg.
333, and: _Werke italienischer Master in den Galerien von Munchen,
Dresden und Berlin_. Leipzig 1880, pg. 158 and 159.)--Compare No.
654, 29.], a picture painted on thick copper covered with white
enamel on which it is painted with enamel colours and then put into
the fire again and baked, far exceeds sculpture in permanence. It
may be said that if a mistake is made it is not easy to remedy it;
it is but a poor argument to try to prove that a work be the nobler
because oversights are irremediable; I should rather say that it
will be more difficult to improve the mind of the master who makes
such mistakes than to repair the work he has spoilt.
656.
We know very well that a really experienced and good painter will
not make such mistakes; on the contrary, with sound rules he will
remove so little at a time that he will bring his work to a good
issue. Again the sculptor if working in clay or wax, can add or
reduce, and when his model is finished it can easily be cast in
bronze, and this is the last operation and is the most permanent
form of sculpture. Inasmuch as that which is merely of marble is
liable to ruin, but not bronze. Hence a painting done on copper
which as I said of painting may be added to or altered, resembles
sculpture in bronze, which, having first been made in wax could then
be altered or added to; and if sculpture in bronze is durable, this
work in copper and enamel is absolutely imperishable. Bronze is but
dark and rough after all, but this latter is covered with various
and lovely colours in infinite variety, as has been said above; or
if you will have me only speak of painting on panel, I am content to
pronounce between it and sculpture; saying that painting is the more
beautiful and the more imaginative and the more copious, while
sculpture is the more durable but it has nothing else. Sculpture
shows with little labour what in painting appears a miraculous thing
to do; to make what is impalpable appear palpable, flat objects
appear in relief, distant objects seem close. In fact painting is
adorned with infinite possibilities which sculpture cannot command.
Aphorisms (657-659).
657.