Why Painters Repeat Themselves; Painting the Seasons
Treatise on Painting: figures resemble their makers; regional winters and autumn foliage
A text page headed 'TERZA' gathering several short chapters. One explains that figures often resemble their makers because the judgement guiding the hand is the same power of the soul that shaped the painter's own body. Others advise on depicting the parts of the world — not showing winter in trees and meadows in warm maritime southern places as in the cold north — and on rendering the seasons, with autumn trees beginning to pale their leaves on the oldest branches, paler and reddening in the earliest-fruiting species.
On this page
Why figures resemble their makers
Leonardo explains that our judgement moves the hand to shape the lineaments of figures until it is satisfied, and since that judgement is a power of the soul that first composed the painter's own body, it willingly remakes a body of the kind it first invented. Hence, he adds, whoever falls in love tends to love things resembling themselves.
Depicting the parts of the world
The painter is advised that in maritime places, or those near lands facing south, winter should not be shown in the trees and meadows as it would be in regions remote from those seas and to the north — except in trees that shed their leaves every year. It is a note on matching landscape to climate and region.
Painting autumn foliage
For autumn, things are to be rendered according to the age of the season: at its beginning the trees start to pale their leaves on the oldest branches, more or less according to whether the plant stands in barren or fertile ground, and paler and reddening in those species that were the first to bear fruit. The passage breaks off cautioning against a common error.