The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci Complete


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In landscapes which represent [a scene in] winter. The mountains  
should not be shown blue, as we see in the mountains in the summer.  
And this is proved [Footnote 5. 6.: Per la 4a di questo. It is  
impossible to ascertain what this quotation refers to. Questo  
certainly does not mean the MS. in hand, nor any other now known to  
us. The same remark applies to the phrase in line 15: per la 2a  
di questo.] in the 4th of this which says: Among mountains seen  
from a great distance those will look of the bluest colour which are  
in themselves the darkest; hence, when the trees are stripped of  
their leaves, they will show a bluer tinge which will be in itself  
darker; therefore, when the trees have lost their leaves they will  
look of a gray colour, while, with their leaves, they are green, and  
in proportion as the green is darker than the grey hue the green  
will be of a bluer tinge than the gray. Also by the 2nd of this: The  
shadows of trees covered with leaves are darker than the shadows of  
those trees which have lost their leaves in proportion as the trees  
covered with leaves are denser than those without leaves--and thus  
my meaning is proved.  
The definition of the blue colour of the atmosphere explains why the  
landscape is bluer in the summer than in the winter.  
4
62.  
OF PAINTING IN A LANDSCAPE.  
328  


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326 327 328 329 330

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