him.
We are fond of exaggerating the love our friends bear us, but it is
less from a feeling of gratitude than from a desire to advertise our
own merits.
What usually hinders us from revealing the depths of our hearts to
our friends is not so much the distrust which we have of them as the
distrust that we have of ourselves.
We confess our little defects merely to persuade our friends that we
have no great failings.
The greatest effort of friendship is not to show our defects to a
friend, but to make him see his own.
Sincerity is an opening of the heart. It is found in exceedingly few
people, and what passes for it is only a subtle dissimulation used to
attract confidence.
We can love nothing except in relation to ourselves, and we merely
follow our own bent and pleasure when we prefer our friends to
ourselves; yet it is only by this preference that friendship can be
made true and perfect.
It seems as if self-love is the dupe of kindness and that it is
forgotten while we are working for the benefit of other men. In this
case, however, our self-love is merely taking the safest road to arrive
at its ends; it is lending at usury under the pretext of giving, it is
aiming at winning all the world by subtle and delicate means.
The first impulses of joy excited in us by the good fortune of our
friends proceed neither from our good nature nor from the friendship
we have for them; it is an effect of self-love that flatters us with
the hope either of being fortunate in our turn or of drawing some
advantage from their prosperity.
What makes us so eager to form new acquaintances is not the mere
pleasure of change or a weariness of old friendships, so much as a
disgust at not being enough admired by those who know us too well, and
a hope of winning more admiration from persons who do not know much
about us.
_III.--Things of the Mind_
The mind is always the dupe of the heart. Those who are acquainted with
their own mind are not acquainted with their own heart.
The mind is more indolent than the body.
It is the mark of fine intellects to explain many things in a few
words; little minds have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.
We speak but little when vanity does not make us speak.
A spirit of confidence helps on conversation more than brilliance of
mind does.
True eloquence consists of saying all that is necessary, and nothing
more.
A man may be witty and still be a fool; judgment is the source of
wisdom.
A man does not please for very long when he has but one kind of wit.
It is a mistake to imagine that wit and judgment are two distinct
things; judgment is only the perfection of wit, which pierces into the
recesses of things and there perceives what from the outside seems to
be imperceptible.
A man of intelligence would often be at a loss were it not for the
company of fools.
It is not so much fertility of mind that leads us to discover many
expedients in regard to a single matter, as a defect of intelligence,
that makes us stop at everything presented to our imagination, and
hinders us from discerning at once which is the best course.
Some old men like to give good advice to console themselves for being
no longer in a state to give a bad example.
No man of sound good sense strikes us as such unless he is of our way
of thinking.
Stiffness of opinion comes from pettiness of mind; we do not easily
believe in anything that is beyond our range of vision.
Good taste is based on judgment rather than on intelligence.
It is more often through pride than through any want of enlightenment
that men set themselves stubbornly to oppose the most current opinions;
finding all the best places taken on the popular side, they do not want
those in the rear.
In order to understand things well one must know the detail of them;
and as this is almost infinite, our knowledge is always superficial and
imperfect.
It is never so difficult to talk well as when we are ashamed of our
silence.
The excessive pleasure we feel in talking about ourselves ought to make
us apprehensive that we afford little to our listeners.
Truth has not done so much good in the world as the false appearances
of it have done harm.
Man's chief wisdom consists in being sensible of his follies.
_IV.--Human Life and Human Nature_
Youth is a continual intoxication; it is the fever of reason.
The passions of youth are scarcely more opposed to salvation than the
lukewarmness of old persons.
There is not enough material in a fool to make a good man out of him.
We have more strength than will, and it is often to excuse ourselves to
ourselves that we imagine things are impossible.
There are few things impossible in themselves; it is the application to
achieve them that we lack more than the means.
It is a mistake to imagine that only the more violent passions, such as
ambition and love, can triumph over the rest. Idleness often masters
them all. It indeed influences all our designs and actions, and
insensibly destroys both our vices and our virtues.
Idleness is of all our passions that which is most unknown to
ourselves. It is the most ardent and the most malign of all, though we
do not feel its working, and the harm which it does is hidden. If we
consider its power attentively, we shall see that in every struggle it
triumphs over our feelings, our interests, and our pleasures. To give a
true idea of this passion it is necessary to add that idleness is like
a beatitude of the soul which consoles it for all its losses and serves
in place of all its wealth.
The gratitude of most men is only a secret desire to receive greater
favours.
We like better to see those on whom we confer benefits than those from
whom we receive them.
It is less dangerous to do harm to most men than to do them too much
good.
If we had no defects ourselves we should not take so much pleasure in
observing the failings of others.
One man may be more cunning than another man, but he cannot be more
cunning than all the world.
Mankind has made a virtue of moderation in order to limit the ambition
of great men and to console mediocre people for their scanty fortune
and their scanty merit.
We should often be ashamed of our finest actions if the world saw all
the motives that produced them.
Our desire to speak of ourselves, and to reveal our defects in the
best light in which we can show them, constitutes a great part of our
sincerity.
The shame that arises from undeserved praise often leads us to do
things which we should not otherwise have attempted.
The labours of the body free us from the pains of the mind. It is this
that constitutes the happiness of the poor.
It is more necessary to study men than to study books.
The truly honest man is he who sets no value on himself.
Censorious as the world is, it is oftener favourable to false merit
than unjust to true.
It is not enough to possess great qualities; we must know how to use
them.
He who lives without folly is not so wise as he fancies.
Good manners are the least of all laws and the most strictly observed.
Everybody complains of a lack of memory, nobody of a lack of judgment.
The love of justice is nothing more than a fear of injustice.
Passion often makes a fool of a man of sense, and sometimes it makes a
fool a man of sense.
Nature seems to have hidden in the depth of our minds a skill and a
talent of which we are ignorant; only our passions are able to bring
them out and to give us sometimes surer and more complete views than we
could arrive at by thought and study.
Our passions are the only orators with an unfailing power of
persuasion. They are an art of nature with infallible rules, and the
simplest man who is possessed by passion is far more persuasive than
the most eloquent speaker who is not moved by feeling.
As we grow old we grow foolish as well as wise.
Few people know how to grow old.
Death and the sun are things one cannot look at steadily.
_V.--Virtues and Vices_
Hypocrisy is a homage that vice pays to virtue.
Our vices are commonly disguised virtues.
Virtue would not go far if vanity did not go with her.
Prosperity is a stronger test of virtue than misfortune is.
Men blame vice and praise virtue only through self-interest.
Great souls are not those which have less passions and more virtues
than common souls, but those which have larger ambitions.
Of all our virtues one might say what an Italian poet has said of the
honesty of women, "that it is often nothing but an art of pretending to
be honest."
Virtues are lost in self-interest, as rivers are in the sea.
To the honour of virtue it must be acknowledged that the greatest
misfortunes befall men from their vices.
When our vices leave us, we flatter ourselves that we have left them.
Feebleness is more opposed to vice than virtue is.
What makes the pangs of shame and jealousy so sharp is that our vanity
cannot help us to support them.
What makes the vanity of other persons so intolerable is that it hurts
our own.
We have not the courage to say in general that we have no defects, and
that our enemies have no good qualities; but in matters of detail we
are not very far from believing it.
If we never flattered ourselves the flattery of others Would not injure
us.
We sometimes think we dislike flattery; we only dislike the way in
which we are flattered.
Flattery is a kind of bad money to which our vanity gives currency.
Self-love, as it happens to be well or ill-conducted, constitutes
virtue and vice.
We are so prepossessed in our own favour that we often mistake for
virtues those vices that bear some resemblance to them, and are
artfully disguised by self-love.
Nothing is so capable of lessening our self-love as the observation
that we disapprove at one time what we approve at another.
Self-love is the love of self, and of everything for the sake of self.
When fortune gives the means, self-love makes men idolise themselves
and tyrannise over others. It never rests or fixes itself anywhere
outside its home. If it settle on external things, it is only as the
bee does on flowers, to extract what may be serviceable. Nothing is so
impetuous as its desires, nothing so secret as its designs, nothing so
adroit as its conduct. We can neither fathom the depth, nor penetrate
the obscurity of its abyss. There, concealed from the most piercing
eye, it makes numberless turnings and windings; there is it often
invisible even to itself; there it conceives, breeds, and cherishes,
without being aware of it, an infinity of likings and hatreds; some
of which are so monstrous that, having given birth to them, self-love
either does not recognize them, or cannot bear to own them. From the
darkness which covers self-love spring the ridiculous notions which it
entertains of itself; thence its errors, ignorance, and silly mistakes;
thence it imagines that its feelings are dead when they are but asleep;
and thinks that it has lost all appetite when it is for the moment
sated.
But the thick mist which hides it from itself does not hinder it from
seeing perfectly whatever is without; and thus it resembles the eye,
that sees all things except itself. In great concerns and important
affairs, where the violence of its desire excites its whole attention,
it sees, perceives, understands, invents, suspects, penetrates, and
divines all things; so that one is tempted to believe that each of its
passions has its peculiar magic.
Its desires are inflamed by itself rather than by the beauty and merit
of the objects; its own taste heightens and embellishes them; itself
is the game it pursues, and its own inclination is what is followed
rather than the things which seem to be the objects of its inclination.
Composed of contrarieties, it is imperious and obedient, sincere and
hypocritical, merciful and cruel, timid and bold. Its desires tend,
according to the diverse moods that direct it, sometimes to glory,
sometimes to wealth, sometimes to pleasure. These are changed as age
and experience alter; and whether it has many inclinations or only one
is a matter of indifference, because it can split itself into many or
collect itself into one just as is convenient or agreeable.
It is inconstant; and numberless are the changes, besides those which
happen from external causes, which proceed from its own nature.
Inconstant through levity, through love, through novelty, through
satiety, through disgust, through inconstancy itself. Capricious; and
sometimes labouring with eagerness and incredible pains to obtain
things that are in no way advantageous, nay, even hurtful, but which
are pursued merely as a passion. Whimsical, and often exerting intense
application in the most trifling employments; taking delight in the
most insipid things, and preserving all its haughtiness in the most
contemptible pursuits. Attendant on all ages and conditions; living
everywhere; living on everything; living on nothing. Easy in either
the enjoyment, or privation of things. Going over to those who are at
variance with it; even entering into their schemes; and, wonderful!
joining with them, it hates itself; conspires its own destruction;
labours to be undone; desires only to exist; and, that granted,
consents to be its own enemy.
We are not therefore to be surprised if sometimes, uniting with the
most rigid austerity, it enters boldly into a combination against
itself; because what is lost in one respect is regained in another.
When we think it relinquishes pleasures, it only suspends or changes
them; and even when discomforted, and we seem to be rid of it, we
find it triumphant in its own defeat. Such is self-love!--of which
man's whole life is only a strong, a continued agitation. The sea
is a striking image of it, and in the flux and reflux of the waves,
self-love may find a lively expression of the turbulent succession of
its thoughts, and of its eternal agitation.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Treatise on Painting
Leonardo Da Vinci was born in 1452 at Anchiano, near Vinci,
in Tuscany, the son of a Florentine notary. Trained in the
workshop of Andrea Verrocchio, he became one of the greatest
and most versatile artists of the Renaissance. Indeed, he must
be considered one of the master-minds of all times, for there
was scarcely a sphere of human knowledge in which he did not
excel and surpass his contemporaries. He was not only preeminent
as painter, sculptor, and architect, but was an accomplished
musician, poet, and improvisatore, an engineer--able to construct
canals, roads, fortifications, ships, and war-engines of every
description--an inventor of rare musical instruments, and a great
organiser of fêtes and pageants. Few of his artistic creations
have come down to us; but his profound knowledge of art and
science, and the wide range of his intellect are fully revealed
in the scattered leaves of his notebooks, which are now preserved
in the British Museum, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the
Ambrosiani in Milan, and other collections. The first edition of
the "Treatise on Painting" was a compilation from these original
notes, published at Paris in 1651. Leonardo died at Cloux on May
2, 1519.
_From Da Vinci's Notebooks_
The eye, which is called the window of the soul, is the principal means
whereby our intelligence may most fully and splendidly comprehend the
infinite works of nature; and the ear comes next, by gaining importance
through hearing the things that have been perceived by the eye. If you
historians or poets, or mathematicians, had not seen things with your
eyes, badly would you describe them in your writings. If you, O poet,
call painting dumb poetry, the painter might say of the poet's writing
blind painting. Now consider, which taunt is more mordant--to be called
blind or dumb?
If the poet is as free in invention as the painter, yet his fiction
is not as satisfying to mankind as is painting, for whereas poetry
endeavours with words to represent forms, actions, and scenes, the
painter's business is to imitate forms with the images of these very
forms. Take the case of a poet, describing the beauties of a woman
to her lover, and that of a painter depicting her; you will soon see
whither nature will attract the enamoured judge. And should not the
proof of things be the verdict of experience?
If you say that poetry is more enduring, I may reply that the works
of a coppersmith are more enduring still, since time has preserved
them longer than your works or ours; yet they are less imaginative,
and painting, if done with enamels on copper, can be made far more
enduring. We, in our art, may be said to be grandsons unto God. If you
despise painting, which is the sole imitator of all the visible works
of nature, then you certainly despise a subtle invention which, with
philosophical and ingenious reflection, considers all the properties of
forms, airs, and scenes, trees, animals, grasses and flowers, which are
surrounded by light and shade.
And this is a science and the true-born daughter of nature, since
painting is born of this self-same nature. But, in order to speak more
correctly, let us call it the grandchild of nature, because all visible
things are produced by nature, and from these same things is born
painting. Wherefore we may rightly call it the grandchild of nature,
related to God Himself.
_How Sculpture is Less Intellectual_
Being sculptor no less than painter, and practising both arts in the
same degree, it seems to me that I may without arrogance pronounce how
one of them is more intellectual, difficult, and perfect than the other.
Firstly, sculpture is subject to a certain light--namely, from
above--and painting carries everywhere with it light and shade. Light
and shade are, therefore, the essentials in sculpture. In this respect
the sculptor is aided by the nature of the relief, which produces these
of its own accord; the painter introduces them by his art where nature
would reasonably place them. The sculptor cannot reproduce the varying
nature of the colours of objects; painting lacks nothing in this
respect. The sculptor's perspectives never seem true, but the painter's
lead the eye hundreds of miles into the work. Aerial perspective
is alien to their work. They can neither represent transparent nor
luminous bodies, neither reflected rays nor shiny surfaces like mirrors
and similar glittering bodies; no mist, no dull sky, nor countless
other things, which I refrain from mentioning to avoid getting
wearisome. It has the advantage that it offers greater resistance to
time, although enamels on copper fused in fire have equal power of
resistance. Thus painting surpasses sculpture even in durability.
Were you to speak only of painting on panels, I should be content to
give the verdict against sculpture by saying: Whilst painting is more
beautiful, more imaginative, and more resourceful, sculpture is more
durable; and this is all that can be said for it. It reveals with
little effort what it is. Painting seems a miraculous thing, making
things intangible appear tangible, presenting flat objects in relief,
and distant near at hand. Indeed, painting is adorned with endless
possibilities that are not used by sculpture.
Painters fight and compete with nature.
_Of the Ten Offices of the Eye_
Painting extends over all the ten offices of the eye--namely, darkness,
light, body and colour, figure and scenery, distance and nearness,
movement and repose--all of which offices will be woven through this
little work of mine. For I will remind the painter by what rule and in
what manner he shall use his art to imitate all these things, the work
of nature and the ornament of the world.
_Rule for Beginners in Painting_
We know clearly that sight is one of the swiftest actions in existence,
perceiving in one moment countless forms. Nevertheless, it cannot
comprehend more than one thing at a time. Suppose, for instance, you,
reader, were to cast a single glance upon this entire written page and
were to decide at once that it is full of different letters; but you
will not be able to recognize in this space of time either what letters
they are or what they purport to say. Therefore, you must take word by
word, verse by verse, in order to gain knowledge from these letters.
Again, if you want to reach the summit of a building, you must submit
to climbing step by step, else it would be impossible for you to reach
the top. And so I say to you, whom nature inclines to this art, if you
would have a true knowledge of the form of things, begin with their
details, and don't pass on to the second before the first is well fixed
in your memory, else you will waste your time.
Perspective is the rein and rudder of painting.
I say whatever is forced within a border is more difficult than what is
free. Shadows have in certain degrees their borders, and he who ignores
them cannot obtain roundness, which roundness is the essence and soul
of painting. Drawing is free, since, if you see countless faces, they
will all be different--the one has a long, the other a short nose. Thus
the painter may take this liberty, and where is liberty, is no rule.
_Precepts for Painting_
The painter should endeavour to be universal, because he is lacking
in dignity if he do one thing well and another thing badly, like so
many who only study the well-proportionate nude and not its variations,
because a man may be proportionate and yet be short and stout, or
long and thin. And he who does not bear in mind these variations will
get his figures stereotyped, so that they all seem to be brothers and
sisters, which deserves to be censured severely.
Let the sketching of histories be swift and the articulation not too
perfect. Be satisfied with suggesting the position of the limbs, which
you may afterwards carry to completion at your leisure and as you
please.
Methinks it is no small grace in a painter if he give a pleasing air
to his figures, a grace which, if it be not one's own by nature, may
be acquired by study, as follows. Try to take the best parts from many
beautiful faces, whose beauty is affirmed by public fame rather than
by your own judgment, for you may deceive yourself by taking faces
which resemble your own. For it would often seem that such similarities
please us; and if you were ugly you would not select beautiful faces,
and you would make ugly ones, like many painters whose types often
resemble their master. Therefore, take beautiful features, as I tell
you, and commit them to your memory.
Monstrous is he who has a very large head and short legs, and monstrous
he who with rich garments has great poverty; therefore we shall call
him well proportioned whose every part corresponds with his whole.
_On the Choice of Light_
If you had a courtyard, which you could cover at will with a canvas
awning, this light would be good; or when you wish to paint somebody,
paint him in bad weather, or at the hour of dusk, placing the sitter
with his back to one of the walls of this courtyard.
Observe in the streets at the fall of the evening the faces of men and
women when it is bad weather, what grace and sweetness then appear to
be theirs.
Therefore, you should have a courtyard, prepared with walls painted in
black, and with the roof projecting a little over the said wall. And it
should be ten _braccia_ [ten fathoms] in width, and twenty in length
and ten in height; and when the sun shines you should cover it over
with the awning, or you should paint an hour before evening, when it is
cloudy or misty. For this is the most perfect light.
_Of the Gesture of Figures_
You should give your figures such movement as will suffice to show
what is passing in the mind of the figure; else your art would not be
praiseworthy. A figure is not worthy of praise if it do not express by
some gesture the passion of the soul. That figure is most worthy of
praise which best expresses by its gesture the passion of its nature.
If you have to represent an honest man talking, see that his action be
companion to his good words; and again, if you have to depict a bestial
man, give him wild movements--his arms thrown towards the spectator,
and his head pressed towards his chest, his legs apart.
_The Judgment of Painting_