The Darkest Shadow and the Largest Luminous Angle
Grey lies between black and white; a house lit by the sky-hemisphere r m c
This page of the treatise's fifth book continues Leonardo's science of light and shade. It closes a note on mixed colours — black mixed with white makes grey (berettino), whose supreme beauty lies between light and shadow — then opens two propositions: which coloured body casts the shadow most different from its light (the body nearest white), and which part of a body is most intensely lit by a single light. A pen diagram at lower left frames a geometric proof: the sky-hemisphere r m c illuminates the house k d o f, and the part struck by the larger luminous angle (n f c versus e d c) receives the more intense light.
On this page
Grey (berettino) is most beautiful between light and shade
Mixed colours take on the nature of the colours composing them. Black mixed with white makes grey, which is not beautiful in the deepest shadows as pure black is, nor in the lights as pure white is; its supreme beauty lies between light and shadow.
The darkest shadow belongs to the body nearest white
Leonardo asks which coloured body will make a shadow most different from its light. He answers that the body whose shadowed parts are most remote in brightness from its lit parts is the one nearest in colour to white.
Hemisphere r m c illuminating the house k d o f
The part of a body struck by the largest luminous angle receives the most intense light. In the diagram the hemisphere r m c lights the house k d o f; at f, struck by angle n f c, the brightness is greater than where angle e d c strikes, and the lights stand in the same proportion as the angles.