Now you must forge ahead again, so that you may pursue the course of this theory. You have made your tinted papers; the next thing is to draw. You should adopt this method. Having first practised drawing for a while as I have taught you above, that is, on a little panel, take pains and pleasure in constantly copying the best things which you can find done by the hand of great masters. And if you are in a place where many good masters have been, so much the better for you. But I give you this advice: take care to select the best one every time, and the one who has the greatest reputation. And, as you go on from day to day, it will be against nature if you do not get some grasp of his style and of his spirit. For if you undertake to copy after one master today and after another one tomorrow, you will not acquire the style of either one or the other, and you will inevitably, through enthusiasm, become capricious, because each style will be distracting your mind. You will try to work in this man’s way today, and in the other’s tomorrow, and so you will not get either of them right. If you follow the course of one man through constant practice, your intelligence would have to be crude indeed for you not to get some nourishment from it. Then you will find, if nature has granted you any imagination at all, that you will eventually acquire a style individual to yourself, and it cannot help being good; because your hand and your mind, being always accustomed to gather flowers, would ill know how to pluck thorns.
Mind you, the most perfect steersman that you can have, and the best helm lie in the triumphal gateway of copying from nature. And this outdoes all other models; and always rely on this with a stout heart, especially as you begin to gain some judgment in draughtsmanship. Do not fail, as you go on, to draw something every day, for no matter how little it is it will be well worth while, and will do you a world of good.
Your life should always be arranged just as if you were studying theology, or philosophy, or other theories, that is to say, eating and drinking moderately, at least twice a day, electing digestible and wholesome dishes, and light wines; saving and sparing your hand, preserving it from such strains as heaving stones, crowbars, and many other things which are bad for your hand, from giving them a chance to weary it. There is another cause which, if you indulge it, can make your hand so unsteady that it will waver more, and flutter far more, than leaves do in the wind, and this is indulging too much in the company of women. Let us get back to our subject. Have a sort of pouch made of pasteboard, or just thin wood, made large enough in every dimension for you to put in a royal folio, that is, a half; and this is good for you to keep your drawings in, and likewise to hold the paper on for drawing. Then always go out alone, or in such company as will be inclined to do as you do, and not apt to disturb you. And the more understanding this company displays, the better it is for you. When you are in churches or chapels, and beginning to draw, consider, in the first place, from what section you think you wish to copy a scene or figure; and notice where its darks and half tones and high lights come; and this means that you have to apply your shadow with washes of ink; to leave the natural ground in the half tones; and to apply the high lights with white lead....
If you want to get the effect of a velvet, do the drapery with any colour you wish, tempered with yolk of egg. Then make the cut threads, as the velvet requires, with a miniver brush, in a colour tempered with oil; and make the cut threads rather coarse. And you may make black velvets in this way, and red ones, and any coloured ones, tempering in this way....
If you happen to have to work on woollen cloth, on account of tourneys or jousts, for gentlemen or great lords sometimes teem with desire for distinctive things, and want their arms in gold or silver on this sort of cloth: first, according to the colour of the stuff or cloth, select the crayon which it requires for drawing; and fix it with a pen, just as you did on the velvet. Then take white of egg, well beaten as I taught you before, and an equal amount of size, in the usual way; and put it on the nap of this cloth, on the part where you have to do gilding. Then when it is dry take a crook, and burnish over this cloth; then apply two more coats of this tempera. When it is quite dry, apply your mordant so as not to go outside the tempered part, and lay whatever gold or silver you think fit.
From The Craftsman’s Handbook, trans. D. V. Thompson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1933).
Nature as the Supreme Authority
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Fifteenth century
HOW from age to age the art of painting continually declines and deteriorates when painters have no other standard than work already done:
The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard; but if he will apply himself to learn from the objects of nature he will produce good results. This we see was the case with the painters who came after the time of the Romans, for they continually imitated each other, and from age to age their art steadily declined.
After these came Giotto the Florentine, and he— reared in mountain solitudes, inhabited only by goats and suchlike beasts—turning straight from nature to his art, began to draw on the rocks the movements of the goats which he was tending, and so began to draw the figures of all the animals which were to be found in the country, in such a way that after much study he not only surpassed the masters of his own time but all those of many preceding centuries. After him art again declined, because all were imitating paintings already done; and so for centuries it continued to decline until such time as Tommaso the Florentine, nicknamed Masaccio, showed by the perfection of his work how those who took as their standard anything other than nature, the supreme guide of all the masters, were wearying themselves in vain. Similarly I would say about these mathematical subjects, that those who study only the authorities and not the works of nature are in art the grandsons and not the sons of nature, which is the supreme guide of the good authorities.
Mark the supreme folly of those who censure such as learn from nature, leaving uncensured the authorities who were themselves the disciples of this same nature!
From The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, trans. E. MacCurdy (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock; London: Cape, 1938).
MUSICIANS
Celtic Music and Music in General
GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS
Twelfth century
WELSH MUSIC AND SONG
THEIR musical instruments charm and delight the ear with their sweetness, are borne along by such celerity and delicacy of modulation, producing such a consonance from the rapidity of seemingly discordant touches, that I shall briefly repeat what is set forth in our Irish Topography on the subject of the musical instruments of the three nations. It is astonishing that in so complex and rapid a movement of the fingers, the musical proportions can be preserved, and that throughout the difficult modulations on their various instruments, the harmony is completed with such a sweet velocity, so unequal an equality, so discordant a concord, as if the chords sounded together fourths or fifths. They always begin from B flat, and return to the same, that the whole may be completed under the sweetness of a pleasing sound. They enter into a movement, and conclude it in so delicate a manner, and play the little notes so sportively under the blunter sounds of the base strings, enlivening with wanton levity, or communicating a deeper internal sensation of pleasure, so that the perfection of their art appears in the concealment of it.... From this cause, those very strains which afford deep and unspeakable mental delight to those who have skilfully penetrated into the mysteries of the art, fatigue rather than gratify the ears of others, who seeing, do not perceive, and hearing, do not understand; and by whom the finest music is esteemed no better than a confused and disorderly noise, and will be heard with unwillingness and disgust.
They make use of three instruments, the harp, the pipes, and the crwth or crowd (chorus).
They omit no part of natural rhetoric in the management of civil actions, in quickness of invention, disposition, refutation, and confirmation. In their rhymed songs and set speeches they are so subtile and ingenious, that they produce, in their nat
ive tongue, ornaments of wonderful and exquisite invention both in the words and sentences. Hence arise those poets whom they call Bards, of whom you will find many in this nation, endowed with the above faculty....
In their musical concerts they do not sing in unison like the inhabitants of other countries, but in many different parts; so that in a company of singers, which one very frequently meets with in Wales, you will hear as many different parts and voices as there are performers, who all at length unite, with organic melody, in one consonance and the soft sweetness of B flat. In the northern district of Britain, beyond the Humber, and on the borders of Yorkshire, the inhabitants make use of the same kind of symphonious harmony, but with less variety; singing only in two parts, one murmuring in the base, the other warbling in the acute or treble. Neither of the two nations has acquired this peculiarity by art, but by long habit, which has rendered it natural and familiar; and the practice is now so firmly rooted in them, that it is unusual to hear a simple and single melody well sung; and, what is still more wonderful, the children, even from their infancy, sing in the same manner. As the English in general do not adopt this mode of singing, but only those of the northern countries, I believe that it was from the Danes and Norwegians, by whom these parts of the island were more frequently invaded, and held longer under their dominion, that the natives contracted their mode of singing as well as speaking.
From Itinerarythrough Wales, trans. Sir. R. C. Hoare.
IRISH MUSIC AND MUSIC IN GENERAL
The only thing to which I find that this people apply a commendable industry is playing upon musical instruments; in which they are incomparably more skilful than any other nation I have ever seen. For their modulation on these instruments, unlike that of the Britons to which I am accustomed, is not slow and harsh, but lively and rapid, while the harmony is both sweet and gay....
It must be remarked, however, that both Scotland and Wales strive to rival Ireland in the art of music; the former from its community of race, the latter from its contiguity and facility of communication. Ireland only uses and delights in two instruments, the harp and the tabor. Scotland has three, the harp, the tabor, and the crowth or crowd; and Wales, the harp, the pipes, and the crowd. The Irish also use strings of brass instead of leather. Scotland at the present day, in the opinion of many persons, is not only equal to Ireland, her teacher, in musical skill, but excels her; so that they now look to that country as the fountain head of this science.
The sweet harmony of music not only affords us pleasures, but renders us important services. It greatly cheers the drooping spirit, clears the face from clouds, smooths the wrinkled brow, checks moroseness, promotes hilarity; of all the most pleasant things in the world, nothing more delights and enlivens the human heart. There are two things which, more than any other, refresh and delight the mind, namely, sweet odours and music. Man, as it were, feeds upon sweet odours and music. In whatever pursuit the mind is engaged, it draws forth the genius, and by means of insensible things quickens the senses with sensible effect. Hence in bold men it excites courage, and in the religious it nourishes and promotes good feeling.
Moreover, music soothes disease and pain; the sounds which strike the ear operating within, and either healing our maladies, or enabling us to bear them with greater patience. It is a comfort to all, and an effectual remedy to many; for there are no sufferings which it will not mitigate, and there are some which it cures....
It appears, then, that music acts in contrary ways; when employed to give intensity to the feelings, it inflames, when to abate them, it lulls. Hence the Irish and Spaniards, and some other nations, mix plaintive music with their funeral wailings, giving poignancy to their present grief, as well as, perhaps, tranquillizing the mind when the worst is past. Music also alleviates toil, and in labour of various kinds the fatigue is cheered by sounds uttered in measured time. Hence, artificers of all sorts relieve the weariness of their tasks by songs. The very beasts, not to speak of serpents, and birds, and porpoises, are attracted by musical harmony to listen to its melody; and what is still more remarkable, swarms of bees are recalled to their hives, and induced to settle, by musical sounds. I have sometimes observed, when on a voyage, shoals of porpoises long following in the wake of the ship when she was pursuing her course, and how they leaped above the surface, and erected their ears to listen to the tones of the harp or the trumpet.
Moreover, as Isidore remarks, “No teaching can be perfect without harmony. Indeed, there is nothing in which it is not found. The world itself is said to be harmoniously formed, and the very heavens revolve amidst the harmony of the spheres. Sounds, the materials of which medodies are composed, are threefold: first they are harmonic, being produced by the voices of singers; secondly, they are organic, being produced by wind; thirdly, they are rhythmical, produced by the touch of the fingers. For sounds are either produced by the voice, through the throat; or by wind, as a trumpet or pipe; or by the touch, as by the harp, or any other instrument the melody of which is produced by the finger.”
From Topography of Ireland, trans. T. Wright.
Two Musical Friars
SALIMBENE
Thirteenth century
Brother HENRY of Pisa was a handsome man, of medium height, generous, amiable, charitable, and merry. He knew how to get along well with everyone, condescending and adapting himself to the personality of each one, and he won the love of his own brethren as well as that of the laymen, which is given to few. Moreover, he was a celebrated preacher, beloved by both the clergy, and the laity. He knew how to write beautifully, and to paint, which some call illuminate, to write music, and to compose the sweetest and loveliest songs, both in harmony and in plain song. He himself was an excellent singer, and had a strong and sonorous voice, so that it filled the whole choir. And his treble sounded light, very high and clear, but sweet, lovely, and pleasing beyond measure. He was my custos in the convent at Siena, and my master of song in the time of Pope Gregory IX....
That Brother Henry of Pisa was a man of admirable manners, devoted to God and to the Holy Virgin, and to the Blessed Magdalen. No wonder, for the church of his quarter of Pisa bore the name of this saint; the cathedral of the city, in which he had been ordained by the archbishop of Pisa, bore the name of the Blessed Virgin. Brother Henry composed many cantilena and many sequences, for example, the words and melody of the following song:O Christ, my God,
O Christ, my Refuge
O Christ, King and Lord,
after the song of a maid who was going through the cathedral church of Pisa, singing in the popular tongue:If thou carest not for me,
I’ll no longer care for thee.
He made, moreover, the three-part song: “Wretched man, think thou on thy Creator’s worksl” Also, he composed for the text of Master Philip, the chancellor of Paris:O Man, how anxious
Is my care for thee!
And then once, when he was custos of the custody of Siena, and lay sick in bed in the infirmary, and could not write, he called me to him, and I was the first to note down one of his songs, while he sang it. Then for another text of that same chancellor, he wrote the melody: “O Cross, for thee shall I mourn.” ...
He composed a noble melody to the sequence: “He has watered the tree of Jesse,” which until then had had a crude one, discordant for singing. Richard of St. Victor wrote the words of this sequence, as well as those of many others. For one of the hymns to the Blessed Magdalen, which Chancellor Philip of Paris had written, “Mourn, tongue of Magdalen” ... Brother Henry composed a lovely melody. He wrote a sequence, words and melody, on the Resurrection of the Lord, namely: “The Lord, who suffered, is risen today.” The second air which belongs to this, the antiphonal chant, was composed by the Franciscan friar, Vita of Lucca, in his time the best singer in the world, in both kinds of song, harmony and plain-chant.
He [Vita] had a lovely, delicate voice, delightful to hear. There was no one so stem that he did not hear him gladly. He sang before bishops, archbishops, cardina
ls, even before the pope himself, and gladly did they listen to him. If anyone spoke while Brother Vita sang, he immediately had thrown up to him the words of Ecclesiasticus, “Hinder not the music.” And when a nightingale sang in hedge or thicket, it would stop when he began to sing, and listen most earnestly to him, as if rooted to the spot, and then take up its song again, and so the voices of bird and friar sounded charming and sweet, singing alternately. So generously did he squander his song that he never made excuses when he was asked to sing, pleading that he had strained his voice, or was hoarse from a cold, or any other reason. Therefore, no one could apply to him the often quoted verses [of Horace]: “All singers have this fault, that they never can be found ready to sing, when they are asked to perform among friends,”
His mother and sister were also gifted with excellent, sweet voices. Brother Vita composed the sequence, “Hail Mary, hope of the world,” both verse and melody. He composed many hymns in harmony, in which the secular clergy especially delight. He was my master of song in his native city of Lucca in that year [1239] when the sun was so terribly eclipsed. Now when the Lord Thomas of Capua, cardinal of the Roman curia ... had written the sequence: “Let the Virgin Mother rejoice,” and had begged Brother Henry of Pisa to compose an air to it, he made one beautiful and delightful and sweet to hear, and to this Brother Vita composed the secondary melody, that is, the harmony. For always, when he found any plain-song of Brother Henry’s, he composed a harmony to it.
The Portable Medieval Reader Page 48