Notebooks (21 page)
Authors: Leonardo da Vinci,Irma Anne Richter,Thereza Wells
Tags: #History, #Fiction, #General, #European, #Art, #Renaissance, #Leonardo;, #Leonardo, #da Vinci;, #1452-1519, #Individual artists, #Art Monographs, #Drawing By Individual Artists, #Notebooks; sketchbooks; etc, #Individual Artist, #History - Renaissance, #Renaissance art, #Individual Painters - Renaissance, #Drawing & drawings, #Drawing, #Techniques - Drawing, #Individual Artists - General, #Individual artists; art monographs, #Art & Art Instruction, #Techniques
Animal as it plunges from one Element into another.
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This note accompanies a drawing of a flying gurnard with its tail turned, its wings outspread on the point of launching from water into air. On the same sheet are drawings of a butterfly, an ant-lion, and a bat, all with outspread wings
.
IV. FLYING MACHINE.
The genius of man may make various inventions, encompassing with various instruments one and the same end; but it will never discover a more beautiful, a more economical, or a more direct one than nature’s, since in her inventions nothing is wanting and nothing is superfluous.
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A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, which instrument it is in the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements but not with as much strength, though it is deficient only in power of maintaining equilibrium. We may therefore say that such an instrument constructed by man is lacking in nothing except the life of the bird, and this life must needs be imitated by the life of man. The life which resides in the bird’s members will without doubt better obey their needs than will that of man which is separated from them and especially in the almost imperceptible movements which preserve equilibrium. But since we see that the bird is equipped for many sensitive varieties of movement, we are able from this experience to deduce that the most obvious of these movements will be capable of being comprehended by man’s understanding, and that he will to a great extent be able to provide against the destruction of that instrument of which he has made himself life and guide.
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A substance offers as much resistance to the air as the air to the substance. See how the beating of its wings against the air supports a heavy eagle in the highly rarefied air close to the sphere of elemental fire. Observe also how the air in motion over the sea fills the swelling sails and drives heavily laden ships.
From these instances, and the reasons given, a man with wings large enough and duly attached might learn to overcome the resistance of the air, and conquering it succeed in subjugating it and raise himself upon it.
If a man has a tent 12 braccia wide and 12 high covered with cloth* he can throw himself down from any great height without hurting himself.
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The man in flying machines must be free from the waist upwards in order to be able to balance himself as he does in a boat, so that his centre of gravity and that of his machine may counterbalance each other and shift where necessity demands through a change in the centre of its resistance.
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Remember that your bird must imitate no other than the bat, because its membranes serve as framework or rather as a means of connecting the framework, that is the frame of the wings.
If you imitate the wings of feathered birds these are more powerful in structure because they are penetrable, that is their feathers are separate and the air passes through them. But the bat is aided by its membrane which binds the whole and is not penetrated by the air.
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Dissect the bat, and concentrate on this, and on this model arrange the machine.
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Suppose that there is a body suspended, which resembles that of a bird, and that its tail is twisted to an angle of different degrees; you will be able by means of this to deduce a general rule as to the various twists and turns in the movements of birds occasioned by the bending of their tails. In all the various movements the heaviest part of the body which moves becomes the guide of the movement.
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When the mover of a body has power divisible in four through its four chief ministering members, it will be able to employ them equally and unequally, and also all equally and all unequally, according to the dictates of the various movements of the flying body.
If they are all moved equally the flying body will be in regular movement.
If they are used unequally in continuous proportion, the flying body will be in circling movement.
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The bird I have described ought by the help of the wind to rise to a great height and this will be its safety; since even if all the above-mentioned revolutions were to befall it it would still have time to regain a position of equilibrium provided that its parts have a great resistance; so that they can safely withstand the fury and impetus of the descent by aid of the defences which I have mentioned, and of its joints made of strong tanned leather and its rigging made of cords of very strong raw silk; and let no one encumber himself with iron bands for these are very soon broken at the joints and they become worn out; and for this reason it is well not to encumber oneself with them.
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IV
THE ARTS
I. THE ARTIST’S COURSE OF STUDYLeonardo’s notes for a treatise on painting may be arranged under the following headings: A student must learn how the eye functions; how the shapes, sizes, and recessions of objects that are put in its way can be co-ordinated; and how they are revealed by the play of light on their surfaces; he must also study their structure and life. He must understand these fundamentals in order to create in a conforming manner and spirit.
1. THE EYE AND THE APPEARANCE OF THINGSHow do we observe nature, and what is the proper analysis of our observation? These are initial questions for both painters and scientists.
Nature is perceived through the senses, mainly through the sense of sight. The art of painting is embedded in the process of seeing. Fields of views are conveyed through visual rays into the eye. The painter must analyse this experience in order to reproduce the visual image appearing in the eye on his picture plane. His painting should give the impression of a window through which we look out into a section of the visible world.
He was able to achieve this by the science of perspective, which provided a mathematical method of constructing a three-dimensional space which included any number of individual objects, on to a two-dimensional surface, a method which met not only the requirements of verisimilitude but also those of unification and harmony (compare p. 183)
.
(.
a
) The Five Senses
The ancient speculators have concluded that the faculty of judgement which is given to man is quickened by an instrument with which the five senses are connected by means of the organ of perception (
imprensiva
); and to this instrument they have given the name of ‘sensus communis’. And this name is used simply because it is the common judge of the other five senses, namely seeing, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. The ‘sensus communis’ is activated by the organ of perception (
imprensiva
) which is situated midway between it and the senses. The organ of perception works by means of the images of the things transmitted to it by the five senses, which are placed on the surface midway between the external things and the organ of perception. . . .
imprensiva
); and to this instrument they have given the name of ‘sensus communis’. And this name is used simply because it is the common judge of the other five senses, namely seeing, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. The ‘sensus communis’ is activated by the organ of perception (
imprensiva
) which is situated midway between it and the senses. The organ of perception works by means of the images of the things transmitted to it by the five senses, which are placed on the surface midway between the external things and the organ of perception. . . .
The images of the surrounding things are transmitted to the senses, and the senses transmit them to the organ of perception, and the organ of perception transmits them to the ‘sensus communis’, and by it they are imprinted on the memory, and are retained there more or less distinctly according to the importance or power of the thing given. The sense which is nearest to the organ of perception functions most quickly; and this is the eye, the chief and leader of all others; of this only will we treat and leave the others in order not to be too long.
Experience tells us that the eye takes cognizance of ten different qualities of objects;* namely: light and darkness—the first serves to reveal the other nine—the other serves to conceal them—colour and substance, form and position, distance and nearness, movement and rest.
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How the five senses are the ministers of the soul
The soul apparently resides in the seat of judgement, and judgement apparently resides in the place called ‘sensus communis’ where all the senses meet; and it is in this place and not throughout the body as many have believed; for if that were so it would not have been necessary for the instruments of the senses to meet in one particular spot; it would have sufficed for the eye to register its perception on its surface instead of transmitting the images of the things seen to the ‘sensus communis’ by way of the optic nerves; for the soul would have comprehended them upon the surface of the eye.
Similarly with the sense of hearing, it would suffice merely for the voice to resound in the arched recesses of the rocklike bone which is within the ear, without there having to be another passage from this bone to the ‘sensus communis’, whereby the voice must address the common judgement.
The sense of smell is also forced of necessity to have recourse to this same judgement.
The touch passes through the perforated tendons and is transmitted to this same place; these tendons spread out with infinite ramifications into the skin . . . and carry impulse and sensation to the limbs; and passing between muscles and sinews dictate their movement to them; and they obey and in the act of obeying they contract because the swelling of the muscles reduces their length drawing the nerves with it. These nerves are interwoven amid the limbs and spread out to the extremities of the fingers transmitting to the ‘sensus communis’ the impression of what they touch.
The nerves with their muscles serve the tendons even as soldiers serve their leaders; and the tendons serve the ‘sensus communis’ as the leaders their captain, and this ‘sensus communis’ serves the soul as the captain serves his lord.
So, therefore, the articulation of the bones obeys the nerve, and the nerve the muscle, and the muscle the tendon and the tendon the ‘sensus communis’ and the ‘sensus communis’ is the seat of the soul, and the memory is its monitor, and its faculty of receiving impressions serves as its standard of reference.
How the sense waits on the soul, and not the soul on the sense, and how, where the sense that should minister to the soul is lacking, the soul in such a life lacks conception of the function of this sense, as is seen in the case of a mute or one born blind.
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Of the ten functions of the eye which all concern the painter
Painting extends over all the ten functions of the eye; that is, darkness, light, body, colour, shape, location, remoteness, nearness, motion, and rest. My little work will be woven together of these functions, reminding the painter according to what rules and in what fashion he should imitate with his art all these things, the work of nature and ornament of the world.
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(3
b
) The Eye
The eye which is the window of the soul is the chief organ whereby the understanding can have the most complete and magnificent view of the infinite works of nature.
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Now do you not see that the eye embraces the beauty of the whole world? . . . It counsels and corrects all the arts of mankind . . . it is the prince of mathematics, and the sciences founded on it are absolutely certain. It has measured the distances and sizes of the stars; it has discovered the elements and their location . . . it has given birth to architecture and to perspective and to the divine art of painting.
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