narrower and darker. That portion of the wall will be the darkest
where the breadth of the pyramid of shadow is greater than the
breadth of the pyramid of light.

At the point _a_ the pyramid of light is equal in strength to the
pyramid of shadow, because the base _f g_ is equal to the base _r
f_. At the point _d_ the pyramid of light is narrower than the
pyramid of shadow by so much as the base _s f_ is less than the base
_f g_.

Divide the foregoing proposition into two diagrams, one with the
pyramids of light and shadow, the other with the pyramids of light
[only].

261.

Among shadows of equal depth those which are nearest to the eye will
look least deep.

262.

The more brilliant the light given by a luminous body, the deeper
will the shadows be cast by the objects it illuminates.

_V._

_Theory of colours._

_Leonardo's theory of colours is even more intimately connected with
his principles of light and shade than his Perspective of
Disappearance and is in fact merely an appendix or supplement to
those principles, as we gather from the titles to sections_ 264,
267_, and _276_, while others again_ (_Nos._ 281, 282_) are headed_
Prospettiva.

_A very few of these chapters are to be found in the oldest copies
and editions of the Treatise on Painting, and although the material
they afford is but meager and the connection between them but
slight, we must still attribute to them a special theoretical value
as well as practical utility--all the more so because our knowledge
of the theory and use of colours at the time of the Renaissance is
still extremely limited._

The reciprocal effects of colours on objects placed opposite each
other (263-272).

263.

OF PAINTING.

The hue of an illuminated object is affected by that of the luminous
body.

264.

OF SHADOW.

The surface of any opaque body is affected by the colour of
surrounding objects.

265.

A shadow is always affected by the colour of the surface on which it
is cast.

266.

An image produced in a mirror is affected by the colour of the
mirror.

267.

OF LIGHT AND SHADE.

Every portion of the surface of a body is varied [in hue] by the
[reflected] colour of the object that may be opposite to it.

EXAMPLE.

If you place a spherical body between various objects that is to say
with [direct] sunlight on one side of it, and on the other a wall
illuminated by the sun, which wall may be green or of any other
colour, while the surface on which it is placed may be red, and the
two lateral sides are in shadow, you will see that the natural
colour of that body will assume something of the hue reflected from
those objects. The strongest will be [given by] the luminous body;
the second by the illuminated wall, the third by the shadows. There
will still be a portion which will take a tint from the colour of
the edges.

268.

The surface of every opaque body is affected by the colour of the
objects surrounding it. But this effect will be strong or weak in
proportion as those objects are more or less remote and more or less
strongly [coloured].

269.

OF PAINTING.


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