The colors of Leonardo's shadows

Leonardo

Volumn 41, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 271-278

  Fiorani, Francesca ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 57749136601     PISSN: 0024094X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/leon.2008.41.3.271     Document Type: Article

References (49)

1. Pliny, Natural History, H. Rackman, trans. (Cambridge and London: Loeb Classic Library, 1952) XXXV, V
2. On shadows in Western philosophy, art and culture, see T. Da Costa Kaufmann, "The Perspective of Shadows: The History of the Theory of Shadow Projection," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 38 (1975) pp. 258-287
3. M. Baxandall, Shadows and the Enlightenment (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale Univ. Press, 1995)
4. V. Stoichita, A Short History of the Shadow (London: Reaktion Books, 1997)
5. R. Casati, Shadows: Unlocking Their Secrets, from Plato to Our Time (New York: Vintage, 2003)
6. and D. Summers, Real Spaces (London: Phaidon, 2003) pp. 251-548
7. Leonardo da Vinci, Manoscritti dell'Institut deFrance, A. Marinoni, ed., 12 vols. (Florence: Giunti, 1986-1990) Vol. 1: Manoscritto A, fol. 97 v. This note is dated c. 1492
8. On Leonardo's Annunciation, see D.A. Brown, Leonardo da Vinci: Origins of a Genius (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale Univ. Press, 1998) pp. 75-99
9. P.C. Marani, Leonardo da Vinci: The Complete Paintings (New York: Abrams, 2003) pp. 48-61
10. An important reassessment is C. Farago, "Leonardo's Color and Chiaroscuro Reconsidered: The Visual Force of Painted Images," Art Bulletin 73, No. 1 (1992) pp. 63-88
11. On Leonardo's painting technique, see A. Del Serra, "L'incanto dell'Annuncio. Rendiconto di restauro," in Natali [3] pp. 95-111
12. On shadows' symbolism in the story of the annunciation, see Stoichita [1] pp. 67-87, who however did not discuss Leonardo's painting
13. One of Leonardo's innovations was to increase the luminosity of the dull and light-absorbing color gray by painting the gray over a vibrant pink primer, which is now visible underneath the centuries-old surface color (Del Serra [3] p. 104)
14. Leonardo da Vinci, Libro di pittura, C. Pedretti and C. Vecce, eds. 2 vols. (Florence: Giunti, 1995) Vol. 2, No. 467. The original precept and accompanying drawing by Leonardo are lost but they are documented in the Libro di pittura compiled by his pupil Francesco Melzi c. 1550 (Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Urb. Lat. 1270, fol. 148v)
15. On Leonardo's optics, theory of colors, reflections and shadows see Rzepinska, "Light and Shadow in the Late Writings of Leonardo da Vinci," Raccolta vinciana 19, pp. 259-266 (1962)
16. Shearman [3]; C. Pedretti, Leonardo da Vinci on Painting: A Lost Book (Libro A) (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1964) pp. 146-151
17. C. Lindberg, Theories of Vision from Al-Kindi to Kepler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976) pp. 58-86
18. M. Kemp, "Leonardo and the Visual Pyramid," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 40, pp. 128-149 (1977)
19. J. Ackerman, "Leonardo's Eye," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 41, pp. 108-146 (1978)
20. C. Malterse, "Gli studi di Leonardo sulle ombre tra la pittura e la scienza," Arte lombarda 67, pp. 95-101 (1983)
21. C. Maltese, "Leonardo e la teoria dei colori," Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 20, pp. 209-219 (1983)
22. J. Bell, "Color Perspective, c.1492," Achademia Leonardi Vinci 5, pp. 64-77 (1992)
23. M. Hall, Color and Meaning: Practice and Theory in Renaissance Painting (New York and Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992)
24. J. Bell, "Leonardo and Alhazen: The Cloth on the Mountain Top," Achademia Leonardi Vinci 6, pp. 108-111 (1993)
25. J. Bell, "Aristotle as a Source for Leonardo's Theory of Color Perspective after 1500," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 56, pp. 100-118 (1993)
26. and F. Ferhenbach, "Veli sopra veli. Leonardo und die Schleier," in Ikonologie des Zwischenraums. Der Schleier dis Medium und Metapher, J. Endres, B. Wittmann and G. Wolf, eds. (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2005) pp. 121-147
27. Leonardo's highly debated painting technique has been greatly clarified in a recent significant contribution, Mona Lisa: Inside the Painting, J.P. Mohen, M. Menu and B. Mottin, eds. (New York: Abrams, 2006), on which my discussion is based. To the earlier important studies listed in Mona Lisa should be added L. Syson-Billinge, "Leonardo da Vinci's Use of Under-Drawing in the Virgin of the Rocks at the National Gallery and St. Jerome in the Vatican," Burlington Magazine 147, No. 1228, 450-463 (2005)
28. and M. Seracini, "Indagini diagnostiche sulla Adorazione dei magi di Leonardo da Vinci," in La mente di Leonardo: Nel laboratorio del genio universale, P. Galluzzi, ed. (Florence: Giunti, 2006) pp. 339-357
29. Leonardo's precepts quoted in this paragraph are in Leonardo [5] Vol. 2, Nos. 514, 758, 756 and 761
30. On Leonardo's pigments for shadows, see Mona Lisa [7] p. 62
31. Selections of Leonardo's precepts on light, shadows and colors are in Leonardo [5] Vol. 2, pp. 361-467
32. The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, J.P. Richter, ed., 2 vols. (New York: Dover, 1970) Vol. 1, pp. 67-166
33. The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci, J.P. Richter, ed., with commentary by C. Pedretti, 2 vols. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977) Vol. 1, pp. 151-226
34. On the legacy of Leonardo's shadows, see F. Fiorani, "The Theory of Shadow Projection and Aerial Perspective: Leonardo, Desargues and Bosse," in Desargues en son temps, J. Dhombres and J. Sakarovitch, eds. (Paris: A. Blanchard, 1994) pp. 267-282
35. On pinhole images, see D. Lindberg, "The Theory of Pinhole Images from. Antiquity to the Thirteenth Century," Archive for History of Exact Sciences 5, pp. 154-176 (1968)
36. and D. Lindberg, "The Theory of Pinhole Images in the Fourteenth Century," Archive for History of Exact Sciences 6, pp. 299-325 (1970)
37. Alhazen, De aspectibus, in Opticas thesaurus: Alhazeni Arabis libri septem, F. Risner, ed. (Basel, 1572)
38. Reprint with an introduction by D. Lindberg (New York: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1972) pp. 112-113
39. and Lindberg's introductory comments, p. xviii. On the influence of medieval dynamics on Leonardo's writings, see F Fehernbach, Licht und Wasser: Zur Dynamik naturphilosophischer Leitbilder im Werk Leonardo da Vincis (Tübingen: Wasmuth, 1997)
40. Textual analysis comparing Book Five of the Libro di pittura to Leonardo's original manuscripts showed that Melzi copied precepts on light and shadow from Leonardo's MS A of c. 1490, such as the drawing in Fig. 2, but did not use MS C at all, presumably because he could consult a later compilation on light and shadow, possibly the lost Libro W. On the relations between MS C and Libro W, see Pedretti [9] pp. 146-151
41. On Melzi's editorial work, see C. Pedretti, "Introduzione," in Leonardo [5] pp. 11-79
42. C. Vecce, "Nota al testo," in Leonardo [5] pp. 83-123
43. and C. Farago, "How Leonardo da Vinci's Editors Organized His Treatise on Painting and How Leonardo Would Have Done It Differently," in The Treatise on Perspective: Published and Unpublished, L. Massey, ed., Studies in the History of Art 59, pp. 20-52 (2003)
44. Leonardo da Vinci, Il codice atlantico della Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano, A. Marinoni, ed. (Florence: Giunti, 1973-1980) fol. 586 b (English translation from Notebooks [9] Vol. 1, No. 548)
45. On Alhazen's optics see G. Vescovini, Studi sulla prospettiva medievale (Turin: G. Giappichelli, 1965) pp. 113-136
46. and Alhazen, The Optics of Ibn-al-Haytham: Books I-III: On Direct Vision, A.I. Sabra, ed. and trans. (London: Warburg Institute, 1989)
47. On Pelacani's optics, see Vescovini, pp. 239-268
48. G. Vescovini, Arti e filosofia nel secolo XIV: Studi sulla tradizione aristotelica e i moderni (Florence: Vallecchi, 1977) pp. 101-212
49. Farago [3] detected a recurrent sequence in Leonardo's manuscripts relating to the organization of his book on painting, which she named the "trattato sequence." Farago [13] analyzes the relation between Leonardo's "trattato sequence" and Melzi's compilation