The painter's ten considerations against the sculptor's five
Light, colour and aerial distance belong to painting alone; the eye's judgement deceives
Good masters distrust the eye, which always deceives (as when one tries to halve a line by sight), and govern themselves by measured length, thickness and breadth. Leonardo then lists the painter's ten "discourses"—light, darkness, colour, body, figure, position, distance, nearness, motion and rest—against the sculptor's mere five, concluding that sculpture is of less intellectual fatigue. A new heading, "The painter and the sculptor," opens the sculptor's boast that his art is more worthy because more durable, to which Leonardo begins to reply that such permanence belongs to the material, not the maker. The leaf is entirely text.
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The ten considerations of the painter
The painter brings his works to completion through ten various discourses: light, darkness, colour, body, figure, position, distance, nearness, motion and rest. This full range is what raises his labour above the sculptor's.
The sculptor considers only five, using linear perspective alone
The sculptor need consider only body, figure, position, motion and rest; nature herself gives him light and shade, colour concerns him not at all, and distance only moderately, since he uses linear perspective but not the perspective of colours that change with distance from the eye. Thus sculpture has fewer discourses and less fatigue of intellect.
Sculpture's permanence belongs to the material, not the artist
Under the heading "The painter and the sculptor," the sculptor claims his art is more worthy because it is more eternal, fearing damp, fire, heat and cold less than painting. Leonardo begins to answer that this confers no greater dignity, since such permanence arises from the material and not from the craftsman.