The Six Simple Colors and Their Elements
White as light down to black as darkness, and studying mixtures through tinted glass
This page of Book Two of the Treatise on Painting sets out Leonardo's scale of six 'simple' colors, ranking white first and black last, and pairs each with an element: white with light, yellow with earth, green with water, blue with air, red with fire, and black with the darkness above the sphere of fire. It then explains how looking at a landscape through colored glass reveals all the mixtures each tint produces, noting for a yellow glass which hues are improved (yellow and green) and which are spoiled (the blues). The leaf carries only Melzi's neat copy with no diagrams, headed SECVNDA and foliated 76.
On this page
The order of the six simple colors and their elements
White is ranked first among the simple colors and black sixth, with yellow, green, blue and red between. Each is tied to an element: white to light, yellow to earth, green to water, blue to air, red to fire, and black to the darkness lying above the element of fire, where no matter exists for the sun's rays to strike.
Colored glass reveals color mixtures
Leonardo advises taking tinted glasses and looking through them at the colors of the countryside, so every hue beyond the glass is seen mixed with the glass's color. With a yellow glass the blues (and black and white) are worsened while yellow and green are improved; two glasses may be combined to invent endless new mixtures.