Thoughts on Art and Life

by da Vinci Leonardo

35.

Sculpture is not a science, but a mechanical art, because it causes the brow of the artist who practises it to sweat, and wearies his body; and for such an artist the simple proportions of the limbs, and the nature of movements and attitudes, are all that is essential, and there it ends, and shows to the eye what it is, and it does not cause the spectator to wonder at its nature, as painting does, which in a plane by its science shows vast countries and far-off horizons.

36.

The only difference between painting and sculpture is that the sculptor accomplishes his work with the greater bodily fatigue, and the painter with the greater mental fatigue. This is proved by the fact that the sculptor in practising his art is obliged to exert his arms and to strike and shatter the marble or other stone, which remains over and above what is needed for the figure which it contains, by manual exercise, accompanied often by profuse sweating, mingled with dust and transforming itself into dirt; and his face is plastered and powdered with the dust of the marble, so that he has the appearance of a baker, and he is covered with minute chips, and it appears as if snow had fallen on him, and his dwelling is dirty and full of chips and the dust of stone.

The contrary occurs in the case of the painter,—we are speaking of excellent painters and sculptors,—since the painter with great leisure sits before his work well clothed, and handles the light brush dipped in lovely colours. He wears what garments he pleases; his dwelling is full of beautiful pictures, and it is clean; sometimes he has music or readers of diverse and pleasant works, which, without any noise of hammers or other confused sounds, are heard with great pleasure.

37.

There can be no comparison between the talent, art and theory of painting and that of sculpture, which leaves perspective out of account,—perspective which is produced by the quality of the material and not of the artist. And if the sculptor says that he cannot restore the superabundant substance which has once been removed from his work, I answer that he who removes too much has but little understanding and is no master. Because if he has mastered the proportions he will not remove anything unnecessarily; therefore we will say that this disadvantage is inherent in the artist and not in the material. But I will not speak of such men, for they are spoilers of marble and not artists.

Artists do not trust to the judgement of the eye, because it is always deceptive, as is proved by him who wishes to divide a line into two equal parts by the eye, and is often deceived in the experiment; wherefore the good judges always fear—a fear which is not shared by the ignorant—to trust to their own judgement, and on this account they proceed by continually checking the height, thickness and breadth of each part, and by so doing accomplish no more than their duty. But painting is marvellously devised of most subtle analyses, of which sculpture is altogether devoid, since its range is of the narrowest. To the sculptor who says that his science is more lasting than that of painting, I answer that this permanence is due to the quality of the material and not to that of the sculptor, and the sculptor has no right to give himself the credit for it, but he should let it redound to nature which created the material.

38.

Painting has a wider intellectual range and is more wonderful and greater as regards its artistic resources than sculpture, because the painter is by necessity constrained to amalgamate his mind with the very mind of nature and to be the interpreter between nature and art, making with art a commentary on the causes of nature's manifestations which are the inevitable result of its laws; and showing in what way the likenesses of objects which surround the eye correspond with the true images of the pupil of the eye, and showing among objects of equal size which of them will appear more or less dark, or more or less clear; and among objects equally low which of them will appear more or less low; or among those of the same height which of them will appear more or less high; or among objects of equal size placed at various distances one from the other, why some will appear more clearly than others. And this art embraces and comprehends within itself all visible things, which sculpture in its poverty cannot do: that is, the colours of all objects and their gradations; it represents transparent objects, and the sculptor will show thee natural objects without the painter's devices; the painter will show thee various distances with the gradations of colour producing interposition of the air between the objects and the eye; he will show thee the mists through which the character of objects is with difficulty descried; the rains which clouded mountains and valleys bring with them; the dust which is inherent to and follows the contention between these forces; the rivers which are great or small in volume; the fishes disporting themselves on the surface or at the bottom of these waters; the polished pebbles of various colours which are collected on the washed sands at bottom of rivers surrounded by floating plants beneath the surface of the water; the stars at diverse heights above us; and in the same manner other innumerable effects to which sculpture cannot attain.