Herds of animals were to be seen, such as horses, oxen, goats, and sheep, already hemmed in by the waters and left isolated on the high peaks of the mountains huddled together, and those in the middle climbing to the top and treading on the others, and fighting fiercely with each other; and many dying from lack of food.
And the birds had already begun to settle on men and on other animals no longer finding any land left unsubmerged that was not occupied by living creatures; already had hunger, the minister of death, taken the lives of the greater number of the animals when the dead bodies now inflated began to rise from the bottom of the deep waters to the surface among the buffeting waves; and there lay beating one against the other; and, like balls puffed up with wind, rebound from the spot where they strike, these lay upon the bodies of the dead.
And above these judgement scenes the air was seen covered with dark clouds, riven by the jagged course of the raging bolts of heaven, lighting up now here, now there, the depth of the gloom.192
Amid the whirling courses of the winds were seen a great quantity of companies of birds coming from distant lands, and these appeared to be almost indistinguishable, for in their circling movements at one time all the birds of one company were seen edgewise, that is showing their narrowest side, and at another time showing their greatest breadth, that is in full face; and at their first appearance they were shaped like an indistinguishable cloud, and then the second and third groups became more defined as they approached nearer to the eye of the spectator.
And the nearest of these companies descended with a slanting movement, and settled upon the dead bodies, which were borne along by the waves of the great deluge, and fed upon them; and this they did until the buoyancy of the inflated dead bodies came to fail, so that with slow descent they sank down to the bottom of the waters.193
The divisions
Darkness, wind, tempest at sea, deluge of water, forests on fire, rain, bolts from heaven, earthquakes, and destruction of mountains, levelling of cities.
Whirlwinds which carry water and branches of trees, and men through the air. Branches torn away by the winds crashing together at the meeting of the winds, with people upon them.
Broken trees laden with people.
Ships broken to pieces dashed upon the rocks.
Flocks of sheep.
Hailstones, thunderbolts, whirlwinds.
People on trees which cannot support them, trees and rocks, towers and hills crowded with people, boats, tables, troughs and other contrivances for floating,—hills covered with men, women and animals, with lightning from the clouds which illuminates the scene.192
II. COMPARISON OF THE ARTS
1. PAINTING, MUSIC, AND POETRY
Leonardo’s ability to practise several arts led him to compare what they had in common and how they differed, and this deepened his understanding of the distinctive qualities in the realm of painting. He challenged the prevailing scholastic classification of human knowledge according to which the seven Liberal Arts represented the highest form of human effort. Poetry and Music were included among these; but Painting was relegated to the ‘Mechanical Arts’ or crafts which included manual work of various kinds and was considered inferior.
The poet’s art resembles the musician’s in that the syllables of his words are the equivalent of the musician’s notes. Both verse and voice proceed through time in rhythmical formation. The painter, on the other hand, does not express himself in rhythmical divisions of time but he may infuse rhythm into the contours of his figures. Plutarch had compared contours to rhythmic movement: ‘Dancing resembles the lines by which figures are defined—Dancing is like silent poetry, while poetry is the dance of speech.’
However, rhythm was a secondary consideration. It was the harmonic combination, the variation of pitch, that seemed all-important to Leonardo. The painter’s art resembles the musician’s in that proportions are the equivalent of the variations of pitch in musical sounds. Beautiful proportions in painting are like a musical chord with different notes sounded all at one time. These simultaneous harmonies give intense pleasure. Here the poet’s art falls short, since it cannot sound more than one note at a time. It follows from these considerations that harmony and rhythm pass beyond the limits of one art. They respond to a feeling for beauty in our very being and reveal themselves in different guises according to the conditions of each art. ‘Do you not know that our soul is composed of harmony.’
The painter is lord of all types of people and of all things. If the painter wishes to see beauties that charm him it lies in his power to create them, and if he wishes to see monstrosities that are frightful, buffoonish or ridiculous, or pitiable he can be lord and god thereof; if he wants to produce inhabited regions or deserts or dark and shady retreats from the heat, or warm places in cold weather, he can do so. If he wants valleys, if he wants from high mountain tops to unfold a great plain extending down to the sea’s horizon, he is lord to do so; and likewise if from low plains he wishes to see high mountains. . . . In fact whatever exists in the universe, in essence, in appearance, in the imagination, the painter has first in his mind and then in his hand; and these are of such excellence that they can present a proportioned and harmonious view of the whole, that can be seen simultaneously, at one glance, just as things in nature.194
He who despises painting loves neither philosophy nor nature. If you despise painting, which is the sole imitator of all the visible works of nature, you certainly will be despising a subtle invention which brings philosophy and subtle speculation to bear on the nature of all forms—sea and land, plants and animals, grasses and flowers, which are enveloped in shade and light. Truly painting is a science, the true-born child of nature, for painting is born of nature, but to be more correct we should call it the grandchild of nature; since all visible things were brought forth by nature and these her children have given birth to painting. Therefore we may justly speak of it as the grandchild of nature and as related to God.*195
Painting cannot be taught to those not endowed by nature, like mathematics where the pupil takes in as much as the master gives. It cannot be copied like letters where the copy has the same value as the original. It cannot be moulded as in sculpture where the cast is equal in merit to the original; it cannot be reproduced indefinitely as is done in the printing of books.
It remains peerless in its nobility; alone it does honour to its author, remaining unique and precious; it never engenders offspring equal to it; and this singleness makes it excel over sciences which are published everywhere. Do we not see great kings of the East go about veiled and covered because they think they might diminish in fame by showing themselves in public and divulging their presence. Do we not see that pictures representing Deity are kept constantly concealed under costly draperies and that before they are uncovered great ecclesiastical rites are performed with singing to the strains of instruments; and at the moment of the unveiling the great multitudes of peoples who have flocked there throw themselves to the ground worshipping and praying to Him whose image is represented for the recovery of their health and for their eternal salvation, as if the Deity were present in person. The like does not happen with any other work of man; and if you assert that it is not due to the merit of the painter but to the subject represented we answer that, if that were so, men might remain peacefully in their beds provided their imagination were satisfied, instead of going to wearisome and perilous places as we see them doing constantly on pilgrimages. And what necessity impels these men to go on pilgrimages? You surely will agree that the image of the Deity is the cause and that no amount of writing could produce the equal of such an image either in form or in power. It would seem, therefore, that the Deity loves such a painting and loves those who adore and revere it and prefers to be worshipped in this rather than in another form of imitation; and bestows grace and deliverance through it according to the belief of those who assemble in such a place.196
Music may be called the sister of painting, for she is dependent
upon hearing, the sense which comes second,* and her harmony is composed of the union of its proportional parts sounded simultaneously, rising and falling in one or more harmonic rhythms. These rhythms may be said to surround the proportionality of the members composing the harmony just as the contour bounds the members from which human beauty is born.
But painting excels and ranks higher than music, because it does not fade away as soon as it is born, as is the fate of unhappy music. On the contrary, it endures and has all the appearance of being alive, though in fact it is confined to one surface. Oh wonderful science which can preserve the transient beauty of mortals and endow it with a permanence greater than the works of nature; for these are subject to the continual changes of time which leads them towards inevitable old age! And such a science is in the same relation to divine nature as its works are to the works of nature, and for this it is to be adored.197
The musician claims that his art is equal to that of the painter, for it, too, is a body composed of many parts—the graces of which may be contemplated by the observer in as many harmonic rhythms as there are, and with these rhythms which are born and die it delights the soul of man within him. But the painter answers and says that the human body composed of many members does not give pleasure through harmonic rhythms in which beauty has to vary and create new forms, nor is it composed in rhythms which constantly require to be born and to die, but he makes it to last a great number of years and of such excellence that it keeps alive that harmony of proportion which nature with all its force could not keep. How many paintings have preserved the image of divine beauty of which time or sudden death have destroyed Nature’s original; so that the work of the painter has survived in nobler form than that of Nature, his mistress.198
Timbals to be played like a monochord, or the soft flute.199
Music has two ills, one of which is mortal and the other wasting; the mortal is ever linked to the instant which follows that of its utterance; the wasting lies in its repetition making it hateful and vile.200
There is the same difference between the poet’s and the painter’s representation of the human figure as there is between dismembered and united bodies. Because the poet in describing the beauty or ugliness of any figure can only show it to you consecutively, bit by bit, while the painter will display it all at once. . . . And the poet’s way may be compared to that of the musician who all by himself undertakes to sing a composition which is intended for four voices and first sings the part of the soprano, then that of the tenor, then the contralto, and finally the bass. Such performances cannot produce the beauty of harmonious proportions set in harmonious divisions of time. . . . Also music when setting her suave melodies in rhythmic divisions of time, composes them in her various voices. But the poet is debarred from such harmonious discrimination of voices—he is unable to give an equivalent of musical harmony, because it is beyond his power to say different things simultaneously as the painter does in his harmonious proportions where the component parts are made to react simultaneously and can be seen at one and the same time both together and separately. . . . For these reasons the poet ranks far below the painter in the representation of visible things, and far below the musician in that of invisible things.201
If the poet knows how to describe and write down the appearance of forms, the painter can make them so that they appear enlivened with lights and shadows which create the very expression of the faces. Herein the poet cannot attain with the pen what the painter attains with the brush.202
And if the poet serves the understanding by way of the ear, the painter does so by the eye—the nobler sense; but I will ask no more than that a good painter should represent the fury of a battle and that a poet should describe one and that both these battles be put before the public; you will soon see which will draw most of the spectators, and where there will be most discussion, to which more praise will be given and which will satisfy the more. Undoubtedly the painting being by far the more intelligible and beautiful will please more. Inscribe the name of God and set up His image opposite, and you will see which will be more revered. Painting embraces within itself all the forms of nature, while you have nothing but their names which are not universal as form is. If you have the effects of demonstrations we have the demonstrations of the effects. Take the case of a poet who describes the beauties of a lady to her love and a painter who portrays her; and you will see whither nature will the more incline the enamoured judge. Surely the proof of the matter should be allowed to rest on the verdict of experience.
You have set painting among the mechanical arts. Truly were painters as ready as you are to praise their own works in writing, I doubt whether it would endure the stigma of so base a name. If you call it mechanical because it is by manual work that the hands design what is in the imagination, your writers set down with the pen by manual work what originates in your mind. And if you call it mechanical because it is done for money, who fall into this error—if error it can be called—more than you yourselves? If you lecture for instruction, do you not go to whoever pays you the most? Do you do any work without some pay? And yet I do not say this in blame of such views, for every labour looks for its reward. And if a poet should say I will write a story which signifies great things, the painter can do likewise, for even so Apelles painted the Calumny.* If you were to say that poetry is more lasting, I say the works of a coppersmith are more lasting still, for time preserves them longer than your works or ours; nevertheless they display little imagination; and a picture can be made more enduring if painted upon copper in enamel colours.
We by our art may be called the grandchildren of God.
If poetry treats of moral philosophy, painting has to do with natural philosophy. If poetry describes the working of the mind, painting considers the working of the mind as reflected in the movements [of the body]. If poetry can terrify people by fictions of hell, painting can do as much by placing the same things before the eye. Suppose the poet is set against the painter to represent beauty, terror or a base, ugly monstrous thing, whatever the forms he may in his way produce, the painter will satisfy the more. Have we not seen pictures so closely resembling the actual thing that they have deceived both men and beasts.203
How Painting surpasses all human works by the subtle
speculations connected with it
The eye which is called the window of the soul is the chief means whereby the understanding can most fully and abundantly appreciate the infinite works of nature; and the ear is the second, which acquires dignity by hearing of the things the eye has seen. If you, historians, or poets, or mathematicians had not seen the things with your eyes, you could report but imperfectly of them in writing. And if you, O poet, tell a story with your pen, the painter with his brush can tell it more easily, with simpler completeness, and less tedious to follow. If you call painting dumb poetry, the painter may call poetry blind painting. Consider then which is the more grievous defect, to be blind or dumb? Though the poet is as free as the painter in the invention of his fictions his creations do not give so great a satisfaction to men as paintings do; for though poetry attempts to describe forms, actions, and places in words, the painter employs the actual similitude of the forms, in order to reproduce them. Consider, then, which is nearer to the actual man, the name of the man, or his image? The name of the man changes with change of country; but his form is not changed except by death.204
On King Mathias’s* birthday a poet brought him a poem composed in praise of the event which he said was for the benefit of the world; and a painter presented him with a portrait of his beloved. The King quickly closed the book of the poet and turning to the picture fixed his eyes on it with great admiration. Then the poet very indignantly said: ‘O King, read, but read, and you will learn matter of far weightier substance than a mute picture.’ And the King, resenting the reproach that he was admiring mute things, said: ‘Silence, O poet, you do not know what you are saying; this picture serves a nobler sense than your work which might be for th
e blind. Give me something that I can see and touch and not merely hear, and do not blame my choice when I put your book under my arm and am holding the painting with both hands for my eyes to enjoy; because my hands chose of their own accord to serve the nobler sense and not the sense of hearing. I myself am of the opinion that the painter’s art is as far above the poet’s as the sense he serves is nobler. Do you not know that our soul is composed of harmony and that harmony is only produced when proportions of things are seen or heard simultaneously? And do you not see that in your art there is no simultaneous reaction of proportions, but one part produces another in succession so that the latter is not born before the former has died. Therefore, in my opinion, your invention is much inferior to the painter’s for the sole reason that there is no composition of harmonious proportions. It does not satisfy the mind of the listener or beholder like the proportions of the beautiful forms that compose the divine beauties of this face here before me, which being all joined together and reacting simultaneously give me so much pleasure with their divine proportions that I think there is no other work of man on earth that can give greater pleasure.’205
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