Definition, Separating Colors, and Light on Faces
Three precepts: finish the near, keep adjoining colors distinct, and light faces for relief
This page gathers three short chapters of painting doctrine. The first holds that finished, distinct things belong near at hand while blurred, confused edges belong in remote parts of the picture; the second teaches that adjoining colors should give grace to one another and never seem stuck together, differing in lightness as distance and the intervening air require. The third asks whether light should fall on the front of faces or from the side, and argues that a face lit from the front within dark lateral walls gains great relief, especially with light from above. The text breaks off mid-sentence as it continues onto the next leaf.
On this page
Finished near, confused far
Finished and distinct things are to be made as if near at hand, while things with confused, blurred edges are to be feigned in the remote parts of the picture.
Colors that give grace without merging
The colors that clothe figures should give grace to one another, and where one color forms the ground of another they must not seem joined and stuck together, but differ in lightness as the interposed distance and thickness of air require. The distinctness of their outlines follows the same rule of nearness and remoteness.
Frontal light gives faces relief
A face lit on the front and set within dark lateral walls gains great relief, especially with light from above, because its front is lit by the universal light of the air and casts almost imperceptible shadows, while its side parts are darkened by the surrounding walls.