A Treatise on Painting
Encyclopedia
A Treatise on Painting is a collection of Leonardo da Vinci
's writings entered in his notebooks under the general heading "On Painting". The manuscripts were gathered together by Francesco Melzi
sometime before 1542 and first printed in French and Italian as Trattato della pittura by Raffaelo du Fresne in 1651. The main aim of the treatise was to argue that painting was a science. Da Vinci's keen observation of expression and character is evidenced in his comparison of laughing and weeping, about which he notes that the only difference between the two emotions in terms of the "motion of the [facial] features" is "the ruffling of the brows, which is added in weeping, but more elevated and extended in laughing."
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
's writings entered in his notebooks under the general heading "On Painting". The manuscripts were gathered together by Francesco Melzi
Francesco Melzi
Francesco Melzi was an Italian painter, favorite assistant and pupil of Leonardo da Vinci.The son of a Milanese noble family, Melzi joined the household of Leonardo da Vinci in 1506. Melzi accompanied Leonardo on trips to Rome in 1513 and to France in 1517. As a painter, Melzi worked closely with...
sometime before 1542 and first printed in French and Italian as Trattato della pittura by Raffaelo du Fresne in 1651. The main aim of the treatise was to argue that painting was a science. Da Vinci's keen observation of expression and character is evidenced in his comparison of laughing and weeping, about which he notes that the only difference between the two emotions in terms of the "motion of the [facial] features" is "the ruffling of the brows, which is added in weeping, but more elevated and extended in laughing."