The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci Complete


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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).  
6
57.  
OF PAINTING.  
466  


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