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Collection of Leonardo da Vinci's writings
A Treatise on Painting
(
Trattato della pittura
), 1651
|
A Treatise on Painting
(
Trattato della pittura
) is a collection of
Leonardo da Vinci
's writings entered in his notebooks under the general heading "On Painting". The manuscripts were begun in Milan while Leonardo was under the service of
Ludovico Sforza
and gathered together by his heir
Francesco Melzi
. An abridged version of the treatise was first published in France in 1651. After Melzi's manuscript was rediscovered in the
Vatican Library
, the treatise was published in its modern form in 1817.
Content
[
edit
]
The main aim of the treatise was to argue that painting was a science.
[1]
[2]
Leonardo's keen observation of expression and character is evidenced in his comparison of laughing and weeping, about which he notes that the only difference between the two emotions in terms of the "motion of the [facial] features" is "the ruffling of the brows, which is added in weeping, but more elevated and extended in laughing."
[3]
This manuscript contains the famous branching rule:
All the branches of a tree at every stage of its height when put together are equal in thickness to the trunk [below them].
[4]
History
[
edit
]
The manuscripts were begun in Milan while Leonardo was under the service of
Ludovico Sforza
(between 1482 and 1499), being worked on substantially for the last 25 years of Leonardo's life.
The works later published in this collection drew from writing of
Leon Battista Alberti
and
Cennino Cennini
. Upon Leonardo's death, he left his notebooks to his pupil and heir
Francesco Melzi
to be published, a task of overwhelming difficulty because of its scope and Leonardo's idiosyncratic writing.
[7]
Sometime before 1542,
[
citation needed
]
Melzi gathered together the papers for
A Treatise on Painting
from 18 of Leonardo's "books" (two-thirds of which have gone missing).
After Melzi's death in 1570, the collection passed to his son, the lawyer Orazio, who initially took little interest in the journals,
but they were later dispersed.
[9]
[10]
It was printed in an abridged form in French and Italian as
Trattato della pittura
by Raffaelo du Fresne in 1651. After Melzi's version was rediscovered in the
Vatican Library
, the treatise was first published in its modern form in 1817.
In 1937,
Max Ernst
wrote in
Cahiers d'Art
that Leonardo's advice on the studying of stains on walls caused him an "unbearable visual obsession".
All editions of the treatise are kept at the
Elmer Belt
Library of Vinciana at
UCLA
.
[12]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Science: Science of Painting"
.
Britannica
. Retrieved
2013-05-06
.
- ^
Clement Greenberg
;
John O'Brian
(June 1995).
The Collected Essays and Criticism: Affirmations and refusals, 1950-1956
. p. 259.
ISBN
9780226306230
. Retrieved
2013-05-06
.
- ^
Chapter CLXXII, trans. Rigaud.
https://archive.org/details/davincionpainting00leon
- ^
Richter, Jean Paul, ed. (1970) [1880].
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci
. Dover.
ISBN
0-486-22572-0
. Retrieved
2007-02-04
.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link
)
- ^
Keele, Kenneth D.
(1964).
"Leonardo da Vinci's Influence on Renaissance Anatomy"
.
Med Hist
.
8
(4): 360?70.
doi
:
10.1017/s0025727300029835
.
PMC
1033412
.
PMID
14230140
.
- ^
Major, Richard Henry
(1866).
Archaeologia: Or Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, Volume 40, Part 1
. London: The Society. pp. 15?16.
- ^
Calder, Ritchie (1970).
Leonardo & the Age of the Eye
. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. p. 275.
- ^
"UCLA Library"
.
UCLA Library
. Archived from
the original
on 8 May 2020
. Retrieved
5 June
2019
.
Sources
[
edit
]
- Wallace, Robert (1972) [1966].
The World of Leonardo: 1452?1519
. New York:
Time-Life Books
.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Leonardo da Vinci,
Treatise on Painting
, [Codex Urbinas Latinus], translated and annotated by P. Philip McMahon, Princeton University Press 1956
External links
[
edit
]
Wikisource
has original text related to this article:
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Major works
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Lost works
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Sculptures
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Works on paper
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Virgin of the Rocks
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Studies for the
Last Supper
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Studies for the Louvre
Saint Anne
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Leonardeschi
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Museums
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