Loss of colour with distance; the shadow-colour of white
Three Trattato chapters on aerial colour perspective and why white's shadow tends to blue
A text page of the Treatise on Painting carrying three short chapters on colour. The first states that the distance at which an object's colour is lost depends on the time of day and the thickness or thinness of the air through which the colour reaches the eye. The second explains that the shadow of white tends toward blue because white has no colour of its own but receives the colour of its object, here the air. The third argues that the whitest surface casts the shadow that partakes most of black, white being the receptacle most remote by nature from its contrary.
On this page
At what distance an object's colour is lost to the eye
The distances at which colours are lost are as varied as the times of day and as the thicknesses or thinness of the air through which the images of those colours penetrate to the eye. Leonardo declines, for the present, to give any firmer rule.
Why the shadow of white tends toward blue
The shadow of white, seen by sun and air, has shadows tending to azure. This is because white in itself has no colour but is a receptacle of every colour, so that its surface must partake of the colour of the air, its object.
Which colour casts the blackest shadow
The shadow that partakes most of black is generated on the whitest surface, which shows the greatest variety of any surface. White is not counted among the colours and receives every colour most intensely, especially its contrary, black, so its principal shadows differ greatly from its principal lights.