Imitating colours at any distance; matching a sunlit mountain
Comparing paint samples to their subject in one and the same light, using a half-lit western mountain as the worked example.
Continuing the precept on colour-mixing, this page warns that mixing shadow-tones in the shade while imitating sunlit things yields no true likeness, then opens a chapter on imitating colours at any distance. Leonardo advises the painter never to imitate a lit place while standing in shadow, but to compare the imitating and imitated colours in one and the same light, as befits mathematical demonstrations, setting the sample hard against the natural colour. A worked example describes portraying a half-lit western mountain at midday by holding a coloured paper swatch up to its sunlit part. A faint horizontal pen sketch runs across the middle of the page beside the example.
On this page
Why mixing shadow-tones in the shade fails
One and the same colour placed in shadow is the true shadow of that colour placed in the sun. So if you mix lit colours in the sun but shadow-colours in the shade, and then set everything in shade, the imitated light and shadow appear made of a single colour and the true likeness fails.
Compare imitator and imitated in one light
When counterfeiting a colour, never imitate a lit place while standing in shadow, for you would deceive yourself. Compare all the colours to be imitated, the imitator with the imitated, in one and the same light, as befits mathematical demonstrations, and set your colour right against the visual line of the natural colour.
Matching a sunlit mountain with a paper swatch
To imitate the sunlit part of a westward mountain, half in shadow and half in light, at midday: put your colours in the sun, mix by sight of it, and hold your colour against the one imitated. Leonardo takes a little piece of paper clothed in the colour that seems to match the lit part.