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i got more info. hehe....Ernest Rutherford was born on August 30, 1871, in Nelson, New Zealand, the fourth child and second son in a family of seven sons and five daughters. His father James Rutherford, a Scottish wheelwright, emigrated to New Zealand with Ernest's grandfather and the whole family in 1842. His mother, née Martha Thompson, was an English schoolteacher, who, with her widowed mother, also went to live there in 1855.
Ernest received his early education in Government schools and at the age of 16 entered Nelson Collegiate School. In 1889 he was awarded a University scholarship and he proceeded to the University of New Zealand, Wellington, where he entered Canterbury College*. He graduated M.A. in 1893 with a double first in Mathematics and Physical Science and he continued with research work at the College for a short time, receiving the B. Sc. degree the following year. That same year, 1894, he was awarded an 1851 Exhibition Science Scholarship, enabling him to go to Trinity College, Cambridge, as a research student at the Cavendish Laboratory under J.J. Thomson. In 1897 he was awarded the B.A. Research Degree and the Coutts-Trotter Studentship of Trinity College. An opportunity came when the Macdonald Chair of Physics at McGill University, Montreal, became vacant, and in 1898 he left for Canada to take up the post.
Rutherford returned to England in 1907 to become Langworthy Professor of Physics in the University of Manchester, succeeding Sir Arthur Schuster, and in 1919 he accepted an invitation to succeed Sir Joseph Thomson as Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge. He also became Chairman of the Advisory Council, H.M. Government, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research; Professor of Natural Philosophy, Royal Institution, London; and Director of the Royal Society Mond Laboratory, Cambridge.
Rutherford's first researches, in New Zealand, were concerned with the magnetic properties of iron exposed to high-frequency oscillations, and his thesis was entitled Magnetization of Iron by High-Frequency Discharges. He was one of the first to design highly original experiments with high-frequency, alternating currents. His second paper, Magnetic Viscosity, was published in the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute (1896) and contains a description of a time-apparatus capable of measuring time intervals of a hundred-thousandth of a second.
On his arrival at Cambridge his talents were quickly recognized by Professor Thomson. During his first spell at the Cavendish Laboratory, he invented a detector for electromagnetic waves, an essential feature being an ingenious magnetizing coil containing tiny bundles of magnetized iron wire. He worked jointly with Thomson on the behaviour of the ions observed in gases which had been treated with X-rays, and also, in 1897, on the mobility of ions in relation to the strength of the electric field, and on related topics such as the photoelectric effect. In 1898 he reported the existence of alpha and beta rays in uranium radiation and indicated some of their properties.
In Montreal, there were ample opportunities for research at McGill, and his work on radioactive bodies, particularly on the emission of alpha rays, was continued in the Macdonald Laboratory. With R. B. Owens he studied the "emanation" of thorium and discovered a new noble gas, an isotope of radon, which was later to be known as thoron. Frederick Soddy arrived at McGill in 1900 from Oxford, and he collaborated with Rutherford in creating the "disintegration theory" of radioactivity which regards radioactive phenomena as atomic - not molecular - processes. The theory was supported by a large amount of experimental evidence, a number of new radioactive substances were discovered and their position in the series of transformations was fixed. Otto Hahn, who later discovered atomic fission, worked under Rutherford at the Montreal Laboratory in 1905-06.
At Manchester, Rutherford continued his research on the properties of the radium emanation and of the alpha rays and, in conjunction with H. Geiger, a method of detecting a single alpha particle and counting the number emitted from radium was devised. In 1910, his investigations into the scattering of alpha rays and the nature of the inner structure of the atom which caused such scattering led to the postulation of his concept of the "nucleus", his greatest contribution to physics. According to him practically the whole mass of the atom and at the same time all positive charge of the atom is concentrated in a minute space at the centre. In 1912 Niels Bohr joined him at Manchester and he adapted Rutherford's nuclear structure to Max Planck's quantum theory and so obtained a theory of atomic structure which, with later improvements, mainly as a result of Heisenberg's concepts, remains valid to this day. In 1913, together with H. G. Moseley, he used cathode rays to bombard atoms of various elements and showed that the inner structures correspond with a group of lines which characterize the elements. Each element could then be assigned an atomic number and, more important, the properties of each element could be defined by this number. In 1919, during his last year at Manchester, he discovered that the nuclei of certain light elements, such as nitrogen, could be "disintegrated" by the impact of energetic alpha particles coming from some radioactive source, and that during this process fast protons were emitted. Blackett later proved, with the cloud chamber, that the nitrogen in this process was actually transformed into an oxygen isotope, so that Rutherford was the first to deliberately transmute one element into another. G.de Hevesy was also one of Rutherford's collaborators at Manchester.
An inspiring leader of the Cavendish Laboratory, he steered numerous future Nobel Prize winners towards their great achievements: Chadwick, Blackett, Cockcroft and Walton; while other laureates worked with him at the Cavendish for shorter or longer periods: G. P. Thomson, Appleton, Powell, and Aston. C.D. Ellis, his co-author in 1919 and 1930, pointed out "that the majority of the experiments at the Cavendish were really started by Rutherford's direct or indirect suggestion". He remained active and working to the very end of his life.
Rutherford published several books: Radioactivity (1904); Radioactive Transformations (1906), being his Silliman Lectures at Yale University; Radiation from Radioactive Substances, with James Chadwick and C. D. Ellis (1919, 1930) - a thoroughly documented book which serves as a chronological list of his many papers to learned societies, etc.; The Electrical Structure of Matter (1926); The Artificial Transmutation of the Elements (1933) ; The Newer Alchemy (1937)
Rutherford was knighted in 1914; he was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1925, and in 1931 he was created First Baron Rutherford of Nelson, New Zealand, and Cambridge. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1903 and was its President from 1925 to 1930. Amongst his many honours, he was awarded the Rumford Medal (1905) and the Copley Medal (1922) of the Royal Society, the Bressa Prize (1910) of the Turin Academy of Science, the Albert Medal (1928) of the Royal Society of Arts, the Faraday Medal (1930) of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, the D.Sc. degree of the University of New Zealand, and honorary doctorates from the Universities of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, McGill, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Melbourne, Yale, Glasgow, Giessen, Copenhagen, Cambridge, Dublin, Durham, Oxford, Liverpool, Toronto, Bristol, Cape Town, London and Leeds.
Rutherford married Mary Newton, only daughter of Arthur and Mary de Renzy Newton, in 1900. Their only child, Eileen, married the physicist R. H. Fowler. Rutherford's chief recreations were golf and motoring.
He died in Cambridge on October 19, 1937. His ashes were buried in the nave of Westminster Abbey, just west of Sir Isaac Newton's tomb and by that of Lord Kelvin.
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Alberti 'On Painting' - Notes 1-60 - Notes 61-84
Alberti, Leon Battista. On Painting. [First appeared 1435-36] Translated with Introduction and Notes by John R. Spencer. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1970 [First printed 1956].
B o o k T w o
Because this [process of] learning may perhaps appear a fatiguing thing to young people, I ought to prove here that painting is not unworthy of consuming all our time and study.
Painting contains a divine force which not only makes absent men present, as friendship is said to do, [1] but moreover makes the dead seem almost alive. Even after many centuries they are recognized with great pleasure and with great admiration for the painter. Plutarch says that Cassander, one of the captains of Alexander, trembled through all his body because he saw a portrait of his King. [2] Agesilaos, the Lacedaemonian, never permitted anyone to paint him or to represent him in sculpture; his own form so displeased him that he avoided being known by those who would come after him. [3] Thus the face of a man who is already dead certainly lives a long life through painting. Some think that painting shaped the gods who were adored by the nations. It certainly was their greatest gift to mortals, for painting is most useful to that piety [4] which joins us to the gods and keeps our souls full of religion. They say that Phidias made in Aulis a god Jove so beautiful that it considerably strengthened the religion then current. [5]
The extent to which painting contributes to the most honorable delights of the soul and to the dignified beauty of things can be clearly seen not only from other things but [p. 63] especially from this: you can conceive of almost nothing so precious which is not made far richer and much more beautiful by association with painting. Ivory, gems and similar expensive things become more precious when worked by the hand of the painter. Gold worked by the art of painting outweighs an equal amount of unworked gold. If figures were made by the hand of Phidias or Praxiteles from lead itself--the lowest of metals--they would be valued more highly than silver. The painter, Zeuxis, began to give away his things because, as he said, they could not be bought. [6] He did not think it possible to come to a just price which would be satisfactory to the painter, for in painting animals he set himself up almost as a god.
Therefore, painting contains within itself this virtue that any master painter who sees his works adored will feel himself considered another god. Who can doubt that painting is the master art or at least not a small ornament of things? The architect, if I am not mistaken, takes from the painter architraves, bases, capitals, columns, façades and other similar things. All the smiths, sculptors, shops and guilds are governed by the rules and art of the painter. It is scarcely possible to find any superior art which is not concerned with painting. [7] so that whatever beauty is found can be said to be born of painting . [8] Moreover, painting was given the highest honour by our ancestors. For, although almost all other artists were called craftsmen, the painter alone was not considered in that category. For this reason, I say among my friends that Narcissus who was changed into a flower, according to the poets, was the inventor of panting. Since painting is already the flower of every art, the story of Narcissus is most to the point. What else can you call painting but a similar embracing with art of what is presented on the surface of the water in the fountain?
Quintilian said that the ancient painters used to circumscribe shadows cast by the sun, and from this our art has grown. [9] There are those who say that a certain Philocles, an Egyptian, and a Cleantes were among the first inventors of this art. The Egyptians affirm that painting was in use among them a good [p. 64] 6000 years before it was carried into Greece. [10] They say that painting was brought to us from Greece after the victory of Marcellus over Sicily. [11] But we are not interested in knowing who was the inventor of the art or the first painter, since we are not telling stories like Pliny. We are, however, building anew an art of painting about which nothing, as I see it, has been written in this age. They say the Euphranor of Isthmus wrote something about measure and about colours, that Antigonos and Xenocrates exchanged [12] something in their letters about painting, and that Apelles wrote to Pelleus about painting. Diogenes Laertius recounts that Demetrius made commentaries on painting. [13] Since all the other arts were recommended in letters by our great men, and since painting was not neglected by our Latin writers, I believe that our ancient Tuscan [ancestors] were already most expert masters in painting.
Trismegistus, an ancient writer, judged that painting and sculpture were born at the same time as religion, [14] for thus he answered Aesclepius: mankind portrays the gods in his own image from his memories of nature and his own origins. Who can here deny that in all things public and private, profane and religious, painting has taken all the most honourable parts to itself so that nothing has ever been so esteemed by mortals?
The incredible esteem in which painted panels have been held has been recorded. Aristides the Theban sold a single picture for one hundred talents. They say that Rhodes was not burned by King Demetrius for fear that a painting of Protogenes' should perish. [15] It could be said that the city of Rhodes was ransomed from the enemy by a single painting. Pliny [16] collected many other such things in which you can see that good painters have always been greatly honoured by all. The most noble citizens, philosophers and quite a few kings not only enjoyed painted things but also painted with their own hands. Lucius Manilius, Roman citizen, and Fabius, a most noble man, were painters. Turpilius, a Roman Knight, painted at Verona. Sitedius, praetor and proconsul, acquired renown as a [p. 65] painter. Pacuvius, tragic poet and nephew of the poet Ennius, painted Hercules in the Roman forum. Socrates, Plato, Metrodorus, Pyrrho were connoisseurs of painting. The emperors Nero, Valentinian, and Alexander Severus were most devoted to painting. It would be too long, however, to recount here how many princes and kings were pleased by painting. Nor does it seem necessary to me to recount all the throng of ancient painters. Their number is seen in the fact that 360 statues, part on horseback and part in chariots, were completed in four hundred days for Demetrius Phalerius, son of Phanostratus. [17] In a land in which there was such a great number of sculptors, can you believe that painters were lacking? I am certain that both these arts are related and nurtured by the same genius, painting with sculpture. But I always give higher rank to the genius of the painter because he works with more difficult things.
However, let us return to our work. Certainly the number of sculptors and painters was great in those times when princes and plebeians, learned and unlearned enjoyed painting, and when painted panels and portraits, considered the choicest booty from the provinces, were set up in the theatre. Finally L. Paulus Aemilius [18] and not a few other Roman citizens taught their sons painting along with the fine arts and the art of living piously and well. This excellent custom was frequently observed among the Greeks who, because they wished their sons to be well educated, taught them painting along with geometry and music. It was also an honour among women to know how to paint. Martia, daughter of Varro, is praised by the writers because she knew how to paint. Painting had such reputation and honour among the Greeks that laws and edicts were passed forbidding slaves to learn painting. It was certainly well that they did this, for the art of painting has always been most worthy of liberal minds and noble souls. [19]
As for me, I certainly consider a great appreciation of painting to be the best indication of a most perfect mind, even though it happens that this art is pleasing to the uneducated as [p. 66] well as to the educated. It occurs rarely in any other art that what delights the experienced also moves the inexperienced. In the same way you will find that many greatly desire to be well versed in painting. Nature herself seems to delight in painting, for in the cut faces of marble she often paints centaurs and faces of bearded and curly headed kings. It is said, moreover, that in a gem from Pyrrhus all nine Muses, each with her symbol, are be found clearly painted by nature. [20] Add to this that in no other art does it happen that both the experienced and the inexperienced of every age apply themselves so voluntarily to the learning and exercising of it. Allow me to speak of myself here. Whenever I turn to painting for my recreation, which I frequently do when I am tired of more pressing affairs, I apply myself to it with so much pleasure that I am surprised that three or four hours have passed. [21] Thus this art gives pleasure and praise to whoever is skilled in it; riches and perpetual fame to one who is master of it. Since these things are so, since painting is the best and most ancient ornament of things, worthy of free men, pleasing to learned and unlearned, I greatly encourage our studious youth to exert themselves as much as possible in painting.
Therefore, I recommend that he who is devoted to painting should learn this art. The first great care of one who seeks to obtain eminence in painting is to acquire the fame and renown of the ancients. It is useful to remember that avarice is always the enemy of virtue. Rarely can anyone given to acquisition of wealth acquire renown. I have seen many in the first flower of learning suddenly sink to money-making. As a result they acquire neither riches nor praise. However, if they had increased their talent with study, they would have easily soared into great renown. Then they would have acquired much riches and pleasure.
Enough has been said of this up to here. Let us return to our subject. Painting is divided into three parts; these divisions we have taken from nature. [p. 67]
Since painting strives to represent things seen, let us note in what way things are seen. First, in seeing a thing, we say it occupies a place. Here the painter, in describing this space, will say this, his guiding an outline with a line, is circumscription.
Then, looking at it again, we understand that several planes of the observed body belong together, and here the painter drawing them in their places will say that he is making a composition.
Finally, we determine more clearly the colours and qualities of the planes. Since every difference in them is born from light, we can properly call their representation the reception of light. [22]
Therefore, painting is composed of circumscription, composition and reception of light. In the following we shall treat of them most briefly.
First we will treat of circumscription. Circumscription describes the turning of the outline [23] in the painting. It is said that Parrhasius, the painter who talked with Socrates in Xenophon, was most expert in this and had examined these lines carefully. I say that in this circumscription one ought to take great pains to make these lines so fine that they can scarcely be seen. The painter Apelles used to practice this and to compete with Protogenes. [24] Because circumscription is nothing but the drawing of the outline, which when done with too apparent a line does not indicate a margin of the plane but a neat cleavage, [25] I should desire that only the movement of the outline be inscribed. To this, I insist, one must devote a great amount of practice. No composition and no reception of light can be praised where there is not also a good circumscription--that is, a good drawing--which is most pleasant in itself. Here is a good aid for whoever wishes to make use of it. Nothing can be found, so I think, which is more useful than that veil which among my friends I call an intersection. [26] It is a thin veil, finely woven, dyed whatever colour pleases you and with larger threads [marking out] as many parallels as you prefer. This veil I place between the eye and the thing seen, so the visual pyramid [p. 68] penetrates through the thinness of the veil. This veil can be of great use to you. Firstly, it always presents to you the same unchanged plane. Where you have placed certain limits, you quickly find the true cuspid of the pyramid. This would certainly be difficult without the intersection. You know how impossible it is to imitate a thing which does not continue to present the same appearance, for it is easier to copy painting than sculpture. You know that as the distance and the position of the centre are changed, the thing you see seems greatly altered. Therefore the veil will be, as I said, very useful to you, since it is always the same thing in the process of seeing. Secondly, you will easily be able to constitute the limits of the outline and of the planes. [27] Here in this parallel you will see the forehead, in that the nose, in another the cheeks, in this lower one the chin and all outstanding features in their place. On panels or on walls, divided into similar parallels, you will be able to put everything in its place. Finally, the veil will greatly aid you in learning how to paint when you see in it round objects and objects in relief. By these things you will be able to test with experience and judgment how very useful our veil can be to you.
Nor will I hear what some may say, that the painter should not use these things, because even though they are great aids in painting well, [they] may perhaps be so made that he will soon be able to do nothing without them. [28] I do not believe that infinite pains should be demanded of the painter, but paintings which appear in good relief and a good likeness of the subject should be expected. This I do not believe can ever be done without the use of the veil. Therefore, let us use this intersection, that is the veil, as we have said. Then, when a painter wishes to try his skill without the veil, he should note first the limits of objects within the parallels of the veil. Or he may study them in another manner by imagining a line intersected by its perpendicular wherever these limits are located. But since the outlines of the planes are frequently unknown to the inexpert [p. 69] painter--doubtful and uncertain as in the faces of man where he does not discern the distance between the forehead and the temples--it would be well to teach him how he can come to understand them.
This is clearly demonstrated by nature. We see in flat planes that each one reveals itself by its lines, lights and shades. Again spherical concave planes are divided into many planes as if chequered with spots of light and shade. Therefore each part with its highlights, divided by those which are dark, would thus appear as many planes. However, if one continuous plane, beginning shadowy, becomes little by little lighter, then note the middle of it with a very fine line so that the method of colouring it will be less in doubt.
Circumscription, [29] which pertains not a little to composition, remains to be treated. For this it is well to know what composition is in painting. I say composition is that rule in painting by which the parts fit together [30] in the painted work. The greatest work of the painter is the istoria. Bodies are part of the istoria, members are parts of the bodies, planes are parts of the members. Circumscription is nothing more than a certain rule for designing [31] the outline of the planes, since some planes are small as in animals, others are large as those of buildings and colossi.
Concerning the small planes the precepts given up to here will be enough--precepts which we demonstrated when we learned how to use the veil. Perhaps we should find new rules for the larger planes. We must remember what has been said above in the instruction on planes, rays, the pyramid, the intersection, and on the parallels of the pavement, the centric point and line. On the pavement, drawn with its lines and parallels, walls and similar planes which we have called jacent are to be built. Here I will describe just briefly what I do. First I begin with the foundation. I place the width and the length of the wall in its parallels. In this laying out [32] I follow nature. I note that, in any squared body which has right angles, only two on joined sides can be seen at one time. I observe this in [p. 70] describing the foundations of the walls. I always commence first of all with the nearest plane, the greatest of those which are equidistant from the cross-section. These I put before the others, describing their width and height in those parallels of the pavement in such a way that for as many braccia as I choose they occupy as many parallels. To find the middle of each parallel, I find where the diameters mutually intersect. And thus, as I wish, I draw the foundations. Then the height follows by not at all difficult rules. I know the height of the wall contains in itself this proportion, that as much as it is from the place where it starts on the pavement to the centric line, so much it rises upwards. When you wish this quantity of the pavement up to the centric line to be the height of a man, there will, therefore, be these three braccia. Since you wish your wall to be twelve braccia, you go up three times the distance from the centric line to that place on the pavement. [33] With these rules we shall be able to draw all planes which have angles.
The way in which circles are drawn remains to be treated. Circles are drawn from angles. I do it in this manner. In a space I make a quadrangle with right angles, and I divide the sides of this quadrangle in the painting. From each point to its opposite point I draw lines and thus the space is divided into many small quadrangles. Here I draw a circle as large as I want it so the lines of the small quadrangles and the lines of the circle cut each other mutually. I note all the points of this cutting; these places I mark on the parallels of the pavement in my painting. It would be an extreme and almost never-ending labour to divide the circle in many places with new minor parallels and with a great number of points to complete the circle. For this reason, when I have noted eight or more intersections, I continue the circle in the painting with my mind, guiding the lines from point to point. [34] Would it perhaps be briefer to derive it from a shadow? Certainly, if the body which made the shadow were in the middle, located by rule in its place. [p. 71]
We have considered in what way with the aid of the parallels the large angular and round planes are drawn. Since we have finished the circumscription, that is the way of drawing. [35] composition remains to be treated.
It would be well to repeat what composition is. Composition is that rule of painting by which the parts of the things seen fit together in the painting. The greatest work of the painter is not a colossus, but an istoria. Istoria gives greater renown to the intellect than any colossus. [36] Bodies are part of the istoria, members are parts of the bodies, planes part of the members. The primary parts of painting, therefore, are the planes. That grace in bodies which we call beauty is born from the composition of the planes. A face which has its planes here large and there small, here raised and there depressed--similar to the faces of old women--would be most ugly in appearance. Those faces which have the planes joined in such a way that they take shades and lights agreeable and pleasantly, and have no harshness of the relief angles, these we should certainly say are beautiful and delicate faces.
Therefore, in this composition of planes grace and beauty of things should be intensely sought for. It seems to me that there is no more certain and fitting way for one who wishes to pursue this than to take them from nature, keeping in mind in what way nature, marvellous artificer of things, has composed the planes in beautiful bodies. In imitating these it is well both to take great care and to think deeply about them and to make great use of our above-mentioned veil. When we wish to put into practice what we have learned from nature, we will always first note the limits to which we shall draw our lines.
Up to here we have talked of the composition of planes; members follow. First of all, take care that all the members are suitable. [37] They are suitable when size, function, [38] kind, [39] colour and other similar things correspond to a single beauty. If in a painting the head should be very large and the breasts small, the hand ample and the foot swollen, and the body puffed up, this composition would certainly be ugly to see. Therefore, we ought to have a certain rule for the size of the members. In this measuring it would be useful to isolate [40] each bone of the animal, on this add its muscles, then clothe all of it with its flesh. [41] Here someone will object that I have said above that the painter has only to do with things which are visible. He has a good memory. Before dressing a man we first draw him nude, then we enfold him in draperies. So in painting the nude we place first his bones and muscles which we then cover with flesh so that it is not difficult to understand where each muscle is beneath. Since nature has here carried the measurements to a mean, [42] there is not a little utility in recognizing them. Serious painters will take this task on themselves from nature. They will put as much study and work into remembering what they take from nature as they do in discovering it. A thing to remember: to measure an animate body take one of its members by which the others can be measured. Vitruvius, the architect, measured the height of man by the feet. It seems a more worthy thing to me for the other members to have reference to the head, because I have noticed as common in all men that the foot is as long as from the chin to the crown of the head. Thus one member is taken which corresponds to all the other members in such a way that none of them is non-proportional [43] to the others in length and width.
Then provide that every member can fulfil its function in what it is doing. A runner is expected to throw his hands and feet, but I prefer a philosopher while he is talking to show much more modesty than skill in fencing. [44] The painter Demon represented hoplites in a contest so that you would say one was sweating while another, putting down his weapons, clearly seemed to be out of breath. Ulysses has been painted so that you could recognize his insanity was only feigned and not real. An istoria is praised in Rome in which Meleager, a dead man, weighs down those who carry him. In every one of his members he appears completely dead--everything hangs, hands, fingers and head; everything falls heavily. [45] [p. 73] Anyone who tries to express a dead body--which is certainly most difficult--will be a good painter, if he knows how to make each member of a body flaccid. [46] Thus, in every painting take care that each member performs its function so that none by the slightest articulation remains flaccid. The members of the dead should be dead to the very nails; of live persons every member should be alive in the smallest part. The body is said to live when it has certain voluntary movements. It is said to be dead when the members no longer are able to carry on the functions of life, that is, movement and feeling. Therefore the painter, wishing to express life in things, will make every part in motion--but in motion he will keep loveliness and grace. The most graceful movements and the most lively are those which move upwards into the air.
Again we say that in composition the members ought to have certain things in common. It would be absurd if the hands of Helen or of Ophigenia were old and gnarled, [47] or if Nestor's breast were youthful and his neck smooth; or Ganymede's forehead were wrinkled and his thighs those of a labourer; if Milo, a very strong man, were to have short and slender flanks; if a figure whose face is fresh and full should have muscular arms and fleshless hands. Anyone painting Achemenides, found by Aeneas on the island, with the face which Virgil describes [48] and the other members not following such consumptiveness, would be a painter to laugh at. For this reason, all the members ought to conform to a certain appropriateness. I should also like the members to correspond to one colour, because it would be little becoming for one who has a rosy, white and pleasant face to have the breast and the other members ugly and dirty. Therefore, in the composition of members we ought to follow what I have said about size, function, kind and colour. Then everything has its dignity. It would not be suitable to dress Venus or Minerva in the rough wool cloak of a soldier; [49] it would be the same to dress Mars or Jove in the clothes of a woman. The antique painters took care in painting Castor [p. 74] and Pollux to make them appear brothers, but in the one a pugnacious nature appeared and in the other agility. They also took pains to show under the robe of Vulcan his handicap of hobbling [50] --so great was their diligence in expressing the function, kind and dignity of whatever they painted.
The fame of the painter and of his art is found in the following--the composition of bodies. Certain things said in the composition of members also apply here. Bodies ought to harmonize together in the istoria in both size and function. [51] It would be absurd for one who paints the Centaurs fighting after the banquet to leave a vase of wine still standing in such tumult. [We would call] it a weakness if in the same distance one person should appear larger than another, or if dogs should be equal to horses, or better, as I frequently see, if a man is placed in a building as in a closed casket where there is scarcely room to sit down. For these reasons, all bodies should harmonize in size and in function to what is happening in the istoria. [52]
The istoria which merits both praise and admiration will be so agreeably and pleasantly attractive that it will capture the eye of whatever learned or unlearned person is looking at it and will move his soul. That which first gives pleasure in the istoria comes from copiousness and variety of things. In food and in music novelty and abundance please, as they are different from the old and usual. So the soul is delighted by all copiousness and variety. For this reason copiousness and variety please in painting. [53] I say that istoria is most copious in which in their places are mixed old, young, maidens, women, youths, young boys, fowls, small dogs, birds, horses, sheep, buildings, landscapes and all similar things. I will praise any copiousness which belongs in that iistoria. Frequently the copiousness of the painter begets much pleasure when the beholder stands staring at all the things there. However, I prefer this copiousness to be embellished with a certain variety, yet moderate and grave with dignity and truth. I blame those painters who, where they wish [p. 75] to appear copious, leave nothing vacant. It is not composition but dissolute confusion which they disseminate. There the istoria does not appear to aim to do something worthy but rather to be in tumult.
Perhaps solitude will be pleasing for one who greatly desires dignity in his iistoria . The majesty of princes is said to be contained in the paucity of words with which they make their wishes known. Thus in the istoria a certain suitable number of bodies gives not a little dignity. Solitude displeases me in istorie; nor can I praise any copiousness which is without dignity. [54] I dislike solitude in istorie, nevertheless I do not at all praise that copiousness which shrinks from dignity. I strongly approve in all istoria that which I see observed by tragic and comic poets. They tell a story with as few characters as possible. In my judgment no picture will be filled with so great a variety of things that nine or ten men are not able to act with dignity. I think pertinent to this the statement of Varro who admitted no more than nine guests to a banquet in order to avoid confusion.
In every istoria variety is always pleasant. A painting in which there are bodies in many dissimilar poses is always especially pleasing. There some stand erect, planted on one foot, and show all the face with the hand high and the fingers joyous. In others the face is turned, the arms folded and the feet joined. And thus to each one is given his own action and flection of members; some are seated, others on one knee, others lying. If it is allowed here, there ought to be some nude and others part nude and part clothed in the painting; but always make use of shame and modesty. The parts of the body ugly to see and in the same way others which give little pleasure should be covered with draperies, with a few fronds or the hand. [55] The ancients [56] painted the portrait of Antigonos only from the part of the face where the eye was not lacking. [57] It is said that Pericles' head was long and ugly, for this reason he--unlike others--was portrayed by painters and sculptors wearing a helmet. [58] Plutarch says that when the ancient painters depicted [p. 76] the kings, if there were some flaw in them which they did not wish to leave unnoticed, they 'corrected' it as much as they could while still keeping a likeness.
Thus I desire, as I have said, that modesty and truth should be used in every istoria . For this reason be careful not to repeat the same gesture or pose. The istoria will move the soul of the beholder when each man painted there clearly shows the movement of his own soul. It happens in nature that nothing more than herself is found capable of things like herself; [59] we weep with the weeping, laugh with the laughing, and grieve with the grieving. These movements of the soul are made known by movements of the body. Care and thought weigh so heavily that a sad person stands with his forces and feelings as if dulled, holding himself feebly and tiredly on his pallid and poorly sustained members. In the melancholy the forehead is wrinkled, the head drooping, all members fall as if tired and neglected. In the angry, because anger incites the soul, the eyes are swollen with ire and the face and all the members are burned with colour, fury adds so much boldness there. [60] In gay and happy men the movements are free and with certain pleasing inflections. [61] They praise Euphranor since he executed the face and expression of Alexander Paris in which you could recognize him as the judge of the goddesses, the lover of Helen and the slayer of Achilles. There is also great praise for the painter Demon, since in his picture you could easily see [Paris to be] angry, unjust, inconstant, and at the same time placable, given to clemency and mercy, proud, humble and ferocious. They say that Aristides the Theban, equal to Appeles, understood these movements very well. [62] They will certainly be understood by us when we come to know them through study and diligence.
Thus all the movements of the body should be closely observed by the painter. These he may well learn from nature, even though it is difficult to imitate the many movements of the soul. Who would ever believe who has not tried it how difficult it is to attempt to paint a laughing face only to have it [p. 77] elude you so that you make it more weeping than happy? Who could ever without the greatest study express faces in which mouth, chin, eyes, cheeks, forehead and eyebrows all were in harmony with laughter or weeping. For this reason it is best to learn them from nature and always to do these things very rapidly, letting the observer think he sees more than he actually sees.
But let me say something about these movements. Part of this I fabricate out of my own mind, part I have learned from nature. First of all I think that all the bodies ought to move according to what is ordered in the istoria . In an istoria I like to see someone who admonishes and points out to us what is happening there; or beckons with his hand to see; or menaces with an angry face and with flashing eyes, so that no one should come near; or shows some danger or marvellous thing there; or invites us to weep or to laugh together with them. Thus whatever the painted persons do among themselves or with the beholder, all is pointed toward ornamenting or teaching the istoria . Timantes of Cyprus is praised in his panel, the Immolation of Iphigenia, with which he conquered Kolotes. He painted Calchas sad, Ulysses more sad, and in Menelaos, then, he would have exhausted his art in showing him greatly grief stricken. Not having any way in which to show the grief of the father, he threw a drape over his head and let his most bitter grief by imagined, even though it was not seen. [63] They praise the ship painted in Rome by our Tuscan painter Giotto. [64] Eleven disciples [are portrayed], all moved by fear at seeing one of their companions passing over the water. Each one expresses with his face and gesture a clear indication of a disturbed soul in such a way that there are different movements and positions in each one.
Allow me to pass over the movements most briefly. Some movements of the soul are called affections, such as grief, joy and fear, desire and other similar ones. The following are movements of the body. Bodies themselves move in several ways, [p. 78] rising, descending, becoming ill, being cured and moving from place to place. We painters who wish to show the movements of the soul by movements of the body are concerned solely with the movement of change of place. Anything which moves its place can do it in seven ways: up, the first; down, the second; to the right, the third; to the left, the fourth; in depth moving closer and then away; and the seventh going around. [65] I desire all these movements in painting. Some bodies are placed towards us, others away form us, and in one body some parts appear to the observer, some drawn back, others high and others low.
Because there are some who pass all reason in these movements I should like to recount here some things about pose and movement which I have collected from nature. From this we shall clearly understand that they should be used with moderation. Remember how man in all his poses uses the entire body to support the head, heaviest member of all. When he is resting on one foot, this foot always stands perpendicularly under the head like the base of a column, and almost always in one who stands erect the face is turned in the same direction as the feet. I have noted that the movements of the head are almost always such that certain parts of the body have to sustain it as with levers, so great is its weight. Better, a member which corresponds to the weight of the head is stretched out in an opposing part like an arm of a balance. We see that when a weight is held in an extended arm with the feet together like the needle of a balance, all the other parts of the body will displace to counterbalance the weight. I have noticed that in raising the head no one turns his face higher than he would in looking at the zenith; horizontally no one can turn his face past a point where the chin touches the shoulder; the waist [66] is never twisted so much that the point of the shoulder is perpendicular above the navel. The movements of the legs and of the arms are very free in order not to hamper other 'honest' parts of the body. [67] I see in nature that the hands are almost never raised above the [p. 79] head, nor the elbow over the shoulder, nor the foot above the knee, nor between one foot and the other is there more space than that of one foot. Remember that when a hand is extended upward that same side of the body even to the feet follows it so that the heel itself is raised off the pavement.
The diligent artist will note many similar things by himself. Perhaps what I have said is so obvious that it may appear superfluous. But, because I have seen not a few err in these things it seemed best not to be silent about them. You will find that in expressing too violent movements and in making the breast and the small of the back visible at the same time in the same figure--a thing which is neither possible nor becoming--some think to be praised because they hear that figures appear most lively which most throw about all their members. For this reason their figures appear hackers and actors [68] without any dignity in the painting. Because of this they are not only without grace and sweetness but moreover they show the too fiery and turbulent imagination of the artist.
The painting ought to have pleasant and graceful movements, suitable to what is happening there. The movements and poses of virgins are airy, full of simplicity with sweetness of quiet rather than strength; even though to Homer, whom Zeuxis followed, robust forms were pleasing even in women. [69] The movements of youths are light, gay, with certain demonstration of great soul and good force. In men the movements are more adorned with firmness, with beautiful and artful poses. In the old the movements and poses are fatigued; the feet no longer support the body, and they even cling with their hands. [70] Thus each one with dignity has his own movements to express whatever movements of the soul he wishes. For the greatest disturbance of the soul there are similar great movements of the members. This rule of common movements is observed in all animate beings. It would not be fitting to give a plough ox the same movements that you would to Bucephalos, that high-spirited horse of Alexander. Perhaps it would be appropriate in [p. 80] the painting to make Io, [71] who was changed into a cow, run with her tail turned straight back, with the neck erect, and her feet raised.
We have said enough about the movements of animate beings; now, then, since inanimate things move in all those manners which we have stated above, let us treat of them. I am delighted to see some movement in hair, locks of hair, branches, fronds and robes. The seven movements are especially pleasing in hair where part of it turns in spirals as if wishing to knot itself, waves in the air like flames, twines around itself like a serpent, while part rises here, part there. In the same way branches twist themselves now up, now down, now away, now near, the parts contorting themselves like ropes. Folds are in the same way, emerging like the branches from the trunk of a tree. In this they adhere to the seven movements so that no part of the cloth is bare of movement. As I have noted, movements should be moderated and sweet. They should appear graceful to the observer rather than a marvel of study. However, where we should like to find movement in the draperies, cloth is by nature heavy and falls to the earth. For this reason it would be well to place in the picture the face of the wind Zephyrus or Austrus who blows from the clouds making the draperies move in the wind. Thus you will see with what grace the bodies, where they are struck by the wind, show the nude under the draperies in suitable parts. In the other parts the draperies blown by the wind fly gracefully through the air. In this blowing in the wind the painter should take care not to display any drape against the wind. [72] All that I have said about the movements of animate and of inanimate objects I have observed. Once more you have followed with diligence what I have said about the composition of planes, members and bodies.
The reception of light remains to be treated. in the lessons above I have demonstrated at length how light has the power to vary colours. I have taught how the same colour, according [p. 81] to the light and shade it receives, will alter its appearance. I have said that white and black express to the painter shade and light; all other colours for the painter are matter to which he adds more or less shadow or light. Therefore, let us leave the other things. Here we must consider solely how the painter ought to use white and black.
It is said that the antique painters Polygnotos and Timantes used only four colours. Aglaophon was marvelled at because he like to paint with one simple colour. [73] Few of these great painters would have chosen this small number of colours, for they so valued a large number that they thought a multitude of colours more suitable to a productive artist. I certainly agree that copiousness and variety of colours greatly add to the pleasure and fame of a painting. But I should like the [highest level of attainment] in industry and art to rest, as the learned maintain, on knowing how to use black and white. It is worth all your study and diligence to know how to use these two well, because light and shade make things appear in relief. Thus white and black make painted things appear in relief and win that praise which was given to Nicias the Athenian painter. They say the Zeuxis, [74] a most famous antique painter, was almost the leader of the others in knowing the force of light and shade; little such praise was given to the others. [75] I almost always consider mediocre the painter who does not understand well the strength of every light and shade in each plane. I say the learned and the unlearned praise those faces which, as though carved, appear to issue out of the panel, and they criticize those faces in which is seen no other art than perhaps that of drawing.
I prefer a good drawing with a good composition to be well coloured. Therefore let us study first of all light and shade, and remember how one plane is brighter than another where the rays of light strike, and how, where the force of light is lacking, that same colour becomes dusky. It should also be noted that the shadow will always correspond to the light in another part [p. 82] so that no part of a body is lighted without another part being dark.
As for imitating the bright with white and the shadow with black, I admonish you to take great care to know the distinct planes as each one is covered with light or shadow. This will be well enough understood by you from nature. When you know it well, with great restraint you will commence to place the white where you need it, and, at the same time, oppose it with black. With this balancing of white and black the amount of relief in objects is clearly recognized. Thus with restraint little by little continue raising more white and more black as much as you need.
A good judge for you to know is the mirror. I do not know why painted things have so much grace in the mirror. It is marvellous how every weakness in a painting is so manifestly deformed in the mirror. Therefore things taken from nature are corrected with a mirror. I have here truly recounted things which I have learned from nature.
Remember that on a flat plane the colour remains uniform in every place; in the concave and spherical planes the colour takes variations, because what is here light is there dark, in other places a median colour. This alteration of colours deceives the stupid painters, who, as we have said, think the placing of the lights to be easy when they have well designed the outlines of the planes. They should work in this way. First they should cover the plane out to the outlines as if with the lightest dew with whatever white or black they need. Then above this another and then another and thus little by little they should proceed. Where there is more light, they should use more white; where the light fails the white is lost as if in smoke. In the same way they should do the contrary with black. [76]
But remember, never make any plane so white that it cannot be made whiter. If you should dress a figure in whitest robes, it is best to stop much below the highest whiteness. [77] The painter has nothing other than white with which to show the highest [p. 83] lustre of the most highly polished sword, and only black to show the deepest shadow of night. You will see that force of this by placing white next to black so that vases by this means appear of silver, of gold and of glass and appear to shine in the painting. For this reason I criticize severely all painters who use white and black without much discretion. [78]
It would please me if white were sold to painters at a price higher than the most precious gems. It would certainly be useful if white and black were made from those very large pearls which Cleopatra destroyed in vinegar, so that painters would be, as they ought to be, miserly and good managers [79] and their works would be truthful, sweet and pleasing. [80] I cannot overemphasize the advantage of this frugality to painters. If they should perhaps sin in the distributing of black and white, it is to be held less against one who uses much black than one who does not well spread out white. From day to day follow nature so that horrid and obscure things come to be hated by you; and as in doing you learn, so your hand becomes more delicate in grace and beauty. Certainly by nature we love open and clear things; therefore, close more tightly the way in which it is most easy to sin.
We have treated of white and black. Now we will treat of the other colours, not where all good and tried colours are found like Vitruvius, the architect, but in what way well ground colours are used in painting. They say the Euphranor, [81] an ancient painter, wrote something about colours; it is not found today. Truly, if ever this was written by others, we have dug this art up from under the earth. If it was never written, we have drawn it from heaven. We will continue to use our intellect as we have up to here. I should prefer that all types and every sort [82] of colour should be seen in painting for the great delight and pleasure of the observer. Grace will be fond, when one colour is greatly different from the others near it. When you paint Diana leading her troop, the robes of one nymph should be green, of another white, of another rose, of another yellow, [p. 84] and thus different colours to each one, so that the clear colours are always near other different darker colours. This contrast will be beautiful where the colours are clear and bright. There is a certain friendship of colours so that one joined with another gives dignity and grace. Rose near green and sky blue gives both honour and life. White not only near ash and crocus yellow but placed near almost any other gives gladness. Dark colours stand among lights with dignity and the light colours turn about among the darks. Thus, as I have said, the painter will dispose his colours. [83]
There are some who use much gold in their istoria They think it gives majesty. I do not praise it. Even though one should paint Virgil's Dido whose quiver was of gold, her golden hair knotted with gold, and her purple robe girdled with pure gold, the reins of the horse and everything of gold, I should not wish gold to be used, for there is more admiration and praise for the painter who imitates the rays of gold with colours. Again we see in a plane panel with a gold ground [84] that some planes shine where they ought to be dark and are dark where they ought to be light. I say, I would not censure the other curved ornaments joined to the painting such as columns, carved bases, capitals and frontispieces even if they were of the most pure and massy gold. Even more, a well perfected istoria deserves ornaments of the most precious gems.
Up to here we have treated most briefly of the three parts of painting. We have treated of the circumscription, of the larger and smaller planes, we have treated of colours as we believe them to pertain to the use of the painter. Therefore, we thus express all painting when we say it is made up of these three things: circumscription, composition and the reception of light.
make clear my exposition in writing this brief commentary on painting, I will take first from the mathematicians those things with which my subject is concerned. When they are understood, I will enlarge on the art of painting from its first principles in nature in so far as I am able.
In all this discussion, I beg you to consider me not as a mathematician but as a painter writing of these things. Mathematicians measure with their minds alone the forms of things separated from all matter. Since we wish the object to be seen, we will use a more sensate wisdom. [7] We will consider our aim accomplished if the reader can understand in any way this admittedly difficult subject--and, so far as I know, a subject never before treated. Therefore, I beg that my words be interpreted solely as those of a painter.
I say, first of all, we ought to know that a point is a figure which cannot be divided into parts. I call a figure here anything located on a plane so the eye can see it. No one would deny that the painter has nothing to do with things that are not visible. [8] The painter is concerned solely with representing what can be seen. These points, if they are joined one to the other in a row, will form a line. With us a line is a figure whose length can be divided but whose width is so fine that it cannot be split. Some lines are called straight, others curved. A straight line is drawn [p. 43] directly from one point to another as an extended point. The curved line is not straight from one point to another but rather looks like a drawn bow. [9] More lines, like threads woven together in a cloth, make a plane. [10] The plane is that certain external part of a body which is known not by its depth but only by its length and breadth and by its quality. Some qualities remain permanently on the plane in such a manner that they cannot be changed without altering the plane itself. Other qualities are such that, due to visual effects, they seem to change to the observer even though the plane remains the same.
Permanent qualities are of two kinds. One is known by the outermost boundary [11] which encloses the plane and may be terminated by one or more lines. Some are circular, others are a curved and a straight line or several straight lines together. The circular is that which encloses a circle. A circle is that form of a plane which an entire line encircles like a garland. If a point is established in the middle, all lines from this point to the garland will be equal. This point in the middle is called the centre. A straight line which covers the point and cuts the circle into two parts is called the diameter among mathematicians, but I prefer to call it the centric line. Let us agree with the mathematicians who say that no line cuts equal angles on the circumference unless it is a straight line which covers the centre.
But let us return to the plane. It is clear that as the movement [12] of the outline is changed the plane changes both name and appearance so that it is now called a triangle, now a quadrangle and now a polygon. The outline is said to be changed if the lines are more or less lengthened or shortened, or better, if the angles are made more acute or more obtuse. It would be well to speak of angles here.
I call angles the certain extremity of a plane made of two lines which cut each other. There are three kinds of angles; right, obtuse, acute. A right angle is one of four made by two straight lines where one cuts the other in such a way that each [p. 44] of the angles is equal to the others. From this it is said that all right angles are equal. The obtuse angle is that which is greater than the right, and that which is lesser is called acute.
Again let us return to the plane. Let us agree that so long as the lines and the angles of the outline do not change, the plane will remain the same. We have then demonstrated a quality which is never separated from the plane.
We have now to treat of other qualities which rest like a skin [13] over all the surface of the plane. These are divided into three sorts. Some planes are flat, others are hollowed out, and others are swollen outward and are spherical. To these a fourth may be added which is composed of any two of the above. The flat plane is that which a straight ruler will touch in every part if drawn over it. The surface of the water is very similar to this. The spherical plane is similar to the exterior of a sphere. We say the sphere is a round body, continuous in every part; any part on the extremity of that body is equidistant from its centre. The hollowed plane is within and under the outermost extremities of the spherical plane as in the interior of an egg shell. The compound plane is in one part flat and in another hollowed or spherical like those on the interior of reeds or on the exterior of columns. [14]
The outline and the surface, [15] then, give their names to the plane but there are two qualities by which the plane is not altered, [although it appears to be]. These take their variations from the changing of place and of light. Let us speak first of place, then of light, and investigate in what manner the qualities of the plane appear to change.
This has to do with the power of sight, for as soon as the observer changes his position these planes appear larger, of a different outline or of a different colour. All of [these qualities] are measured with sight. Let us investigate the reasons for this, beginning with the maxims of philosophers who affirm that the plane is measured by rays that serve the sight--called by them visual rays--which carry the form of the thing seen to the [p. 45] sense. [16] For these same rays extended between the eye and the plane seen come together very quickly by their own force and by a certain marvellous subtlety, penetrating the air and thin and clear objects they strike against something dense and opaque, where they strike with a point and adhere to the mark they make. Among the ancients there was no little dispute whether these rays come from the eye or the plane. This dispute is very difficult and is quite useless for us. It will not be considered. We can imagine those rays to be like the finest hairs of the head, or like a bundle, tightly bound within the eye where the sense of sight has its seat. The rays, gathered together within the eye, are like a stalk; the eye is like a bud which extends its shoots rapidly and in a straight line on the plane opposite. [17]
Among these rays there are differences in strength and function which must be recognized. Some of these rays strike the outline of the plane and measure its quantity. Since they touch the ultimate and extreme parts of the plane, we can call them the extreme or, if you prefer, extrinsic. Other rays which depart from the surface of the plane for the eye fill the pyramid--of which we shall speak more later--with the colours and brilliant lights with which the plane gleams; these are called median rays. Among these visual rays there is one which is called the centric. Where this one touches the plane, it makes equal the right angles all around it. It is called centric for the same reason as the aforementioned centric line. [18]
We have found three different sorts of rays: extreme, median and centric. Now let us investigate how each ray affects the sight. First we shall speak of the extreme, then of the median, finally of the centric.
With the extreme rays quantity is measured. All space on the plane that is between any two paints on the outline is called quantity. The eye measures these quantities with the visual rays as with a pair of compasses. In every plane there are as many quantities as there are spaces between point and point. Height from top to bottom, width from left to right, breadth from near to far and whatever other dimension or measure which is made [p. 46] by sight makes use of the extreme rays. For this reason it is said that vision makes a triangle. The base of [this triangle] is the quantity seen and the sides are those rays which are extended from the quantity to the eye. It is, therefore, very certain that no quantity can be seen without the triangle. The angles in this visual triangle are first, the two paints of the quantity, the third, that which is opposite the base and located within the eye. [19] Nor is this the place to discuss whether vision, as it is called, resides at the juncture of the inner nerve or whether images are formed on the surface of the eye as on a living mirror. The function of the eyes in vision need not be considered in this place. It will be enough in this commentary to demonstrate briefly things that are essential.
Here is a rule: as the angle within the eye becomes more acute, so the quantity seen appears smaller. From this it is clear why a very distant quantity seems to be no larger than a point. Even though this is so, it is possible to find some quantities and planes of which the less is seen when they are closer and more when they are farther away. The proof of this is found in spherical bodies. Therefore, the quantities, through distance, appear either larger or smaller. Anyone who understands what has already been said will understand, I believe, that as the interval is changed the extrinsic rays become median and in the same manner the median extrinsic. He will understand also that where the median rays are made extrinsic that quantity will appear smaller. And the contrary: when the extreme rays are directed within the outline, as the outline is more distant, so much the quantity seen will seem greater. Here I usually give my friends a similar rule: as more rays are used in seeing, so the thing seen appears greater; and the fewer the rays, the smaller.
The extrinsic rays, thus encircling the plane--one touching the other--enclose all the plane like the willow wands of a basket-cage, and make, as is said, this visual pyramid. It is time for me to describe what this pyramid is and how it is constructed by these rays. I will describe it in my own way. [20] The pyramid is a figure of a body from whose base straight lines are [p. 47] drawn upward, terminating in a single point. The base of this pyramid is a plane which is seen. The sides of the pyramid are those rays which I have called extrinsic. The cuspid, that is the point of the pyramid, is located within the eye where the angle of the quantity is. Up to this point we have talked of the extrinsic rays of which this pyramid is constructed. It seems to me that we have demonstrated the varied effects of greater and lesser distances from the eye to the thing seen.
Median rays, that multitude in the pyramid [which lie] within the extrinsic rays, remain to be treated. These behave, in a manner of speaking, like the chameleon, an animal which takes to itself the colours of things near it. Since these rays carry both the colours and lights on the plane from where they touch it up to the eye, they should be found lighted and coloured in a definite way wherever they are broken. The proof of this is that through a great distance they become weakened. I think the reason may be that weighted down with light and colour they pass through the air, which, being humid with a certain heaviness, tires the laden rays. From this we can draw a rule: as the distance becomes greater, so the plane seen appears more hazy. The central ray now remains to be treated. The central ray is that single one which alone strikes the quantity directly, and about which every angle is equal. This ray, the most active and the strongest of all the rays, acts so that no quantity ever appears greater than when struck by it. We could say many things about this ray, but this will be enough--tightly encircled by the other rays, it is the last to abandon the thing seen, from which it merits the name, prince of rays.
I think I have clearly demonstrated that as the distance and the position of the central ray are changed the plane appears altered. Therefore, the distance and the position of the central ray are of greatest importance to the certainty of sight.
There is yet a third thing which makes the plane appear to change. This comes from the reception of light. You see that spherical and concave planes have one part dark and anther [p. 48] bright when receiving light. Even though the distance and position of the centric line are the same, when the light is moved those parts which were first bright now become dark, and those bright which were dark. Where there are more lights, according to their number and strength, you see more spots of light and dark.
This reminds me to speak of both colour and light It seems obvious to me that colours take their variations from light, because all colours put in the shade appear different from what they are in the light. Shade makes colour dark; light, where it strikes, makes colour bright. The philosophers say that nothing can be seen which is not illuminated and coloured. Therefore, they assert that there is a close relationship between light and colour in making each other visible. The importance of this is easily demonstrated for [21] when light is lacking colour is lacking and when light returns the colours return. Therefore, it seems to me that I should speak first of colours; then I shall investigate how they vary under light. [22] Let us omit the debate of philosophers where the original source of colours is investigated, for what help is it for a painter to know in what mixture of rare and dense, warm and dry, cold and moist colour exists? However, I do not despise those philosophers who thus dispute about colours and establish the kinds of colours at seven. White and black [are] the two extremes of colour. Another [is established] between them. Then between each extreme and the middle they place a pair of colours as though undecided about the boundary, because one philosopher allegedly knows more about the extreme than the other. It is enough for the painter to know what the colours are and how to use them in painting. I do not wish to be contradicted by the experts, who, while they follow the philosophers, assert that there are only two colours in nature, white and black, and there are others created from mixtures of these two. As a painter I think thus about colours. From a mixture of colours almost infinite others are created. I speak here as a painter.
Through the mixing of colours infinite other colours are born, but there are only four true colours--as there are four [p. 49] elements--from which more and more other kinds of colours may be thus created. Red is the colour of fire, blue of the air, green of the water, and of the earth grey and ash. [23] Other colours, such as jasper and porphyry, are mixtures of these. Therefore, there are four genera of colours, and these make their species [24] according to the addition of dark or light, black or white. They are thus almost innumerable. We see green fronds lose their greenness little by little until they finally become pale. Similarly, it is not unusual to see a whitish vapour in the air around the horizon which fades out little by little [as one looks towards the zenith]. We see some roses which are quite purple, others are like the cheeks of young girls, [25] others ivory. In the same way the earth [en colour], according to white and black, makes its own species of colours.
Therefore, the mixing of white does not change the genus of colours but forms the species. Black contains a similar force in its mixing to make almost infinite species of colour. In shadows colours are altered. As the shadow deepens the colours empty out, and as the light increases the colours become more open and clear. For this reason the painter ought to be persuaded that white and black are not true colours but are alterations of other colours. The painter will find no thing with which to represent the brightest luster of light but white and in the same manner only black to indicate the shadows. I should like to add that one will never find black and white unless they are [mixed] with one of these four colours.
Here follow my remarks on light. Some lights are from the stars, as from the sun, from the moon and that other beautiful star Venus. [26] Other lights are from fires, but among these there are many differences. The light from the stars makes the shadow equal to the body, but fire makes it greater.
Shadow in which the rays of light are interrupted remains to be treated. The interrupted rays either return from whence they came or are directed elsewhere. They are directed elsewhere, when, touching the surface of the water, they strike the rafter
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lost i am at skool supposed to be getting information for a report on Ernest Rutherford. heres what i have so far...Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)
Ernest Rutherford is considered the father of nuclear physics. Indeed, it could be said that Rutherford invented the very language to describe the theoretical concepts of the atom and the phenomenon of radioactivity. Particles named and characterized by him include the alpha particle, beta particle and proton.
Even the neutron, discovered by James Chadwick, owes its name to Rutherford. The exponential equation used to calculate the decay of radioactive substances was first employed for that purpose by Rutherford and he was the first to elucidate the related concepts of the half-life and decay constant. With Frederick Soddy at McGill University, Rutherford showed that elements such as uranium and thorium became different elements (i.e., transmuted) through the process of radioactive decay. At the time, such an incredible idea was not to be mentioned in polite company: it belonged to the realm of alchemy, not science.
For this work, Rutherford won the 1908 Nobel Prize in chemistry. In 1909, now at the University of Manchester, Rutherford was bombarding a thin gold foil with alpha particles when he noticed that although almost all of them went through the gold, one in eight thousand would "bounce" (i.e., scatter) back. The amazed Rutherford commented that it was "as if you fired a 15-inch naval shell at a piece of tissue paper and the shell came right back and hit you."
From this simple observation, Rutherford concluded that the atom's mass must be concentrated in a small positively-charged nucleus while the electrons inhabit the farthest reaches of the atom. Although this planetary model of the atom has been greatly refined over the years, it remains as valid today as when it was originally formulated by Rutherford. In 1919, Rutherford returned to Cambridge to become director of the Cavendish laboratory where he had previously done his graduate work under J.J. Thomson. It was here that he made his final major achievement, the artificial alteration of nuclear and atomic structure. By bombarding nitrogen with alpha particles, Rutherford demonstrated the production of a different element, oxygen. "Playing with marbles" is what he called; the newspapers reported that Rutherford had "split the atom." After his death in 1937, Rutherford's remains were buried in Westminster Abbey near those of Sir Isaac Newton. 010907
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more of birdmad and his lame-ass jokes a neutron walks into a bar and asks for a beer.
the bartender obliges and pours him one
two more follow in succession
when he's done drinking, the neutron reaches for his wallet, but is stopped by the bartender, who promptly tells him:
"For you, no charge." 010907
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The Editor i am supposed to report on what i have so far...
Ernest Rutherford is the nuclear phenomenon of radioactivity. Particles named and characterized by decay.
time, an incredible idea of alchemy
Rutherford in Manchester, was bombarding a gold foil with particles of gold, one in eight thousand fired a 15-inch naval shell at the atom's concentrated positively-charged nucleus while the remains returned to Cambridge to become the artificial structure of marbles
the newspapers reported that Rutherford's remains buried those of Sir Isaac Newton. 010907
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lost i got more info. hehe....Ernest Rutherford was born on August 30, 1871, in Nelson, New Zealand, the fourth child and second son in a family of seven sons and five daughters. His father James Rutherford, a Scottish wheelwright, emigrated to New Zealand with Ernest's grandfather and the whole family in 1842. His mother, née Martha Thompson, was an English schoolteacher, who, with her widowed mother, also went to live there in 1855.
Ernest received his early education in Government schools and at the age of 16 entered Nelson Collegiate School. In 1889 he was awarded a University scholarship and he proceeded to the University of New Zealand, Wellington, where he entered Canterbury College*. He graduated M.A. in 1893 with a double first in Mathematics and Physical Science and he continued with research work at the College for a short time, receiving the B. Sc. degree the following year. That same year, 1894, he was awarded an 1851 Exhibition Science Scholarship, enabling him to go to Trinity College, Cambridge, as a research student at the Cavendish Laboratory under J.J. Thomson. In 1897 he was awarded the B.A. Research Degree and the Coutts-Trotter Studentship of Trinity College. An opportunity came when the Macdonald Chair of Physics at McGill University, Montreal, became vacant, and in 1898 he left for Canada to take up the post.
Rutherford returned to England in 1907 to become Langworthy Professor of Physics in the University of Manchester, succeeding Sir Arthur Schuster, and in 1919 he accepted an invitation to succeed Sir Joseph Thomson as Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge. He also became Chairman of the Advisory Council, H.M. Government, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research; Professor of Natural Philosophy, Royal Institution, London; and Director of the Royal Society Mond Laboratory, Cambridge.
Rutherford's first researches, in New Zealand, were concerned with the magnetic properties of iron exposed to high-frequency oscillations, and his thesis was entitled Magnetization of Iron by High-Frequency Discharges. He was one of the first to design highly original experiments with high-frequency, alternating currents. His second paper, Magnetic Viscosity, was published in the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute (1896) and contains a description of a time-apparatus capable of measuring time intervals of a hundred-thousandth of a second.
On his arrival at Cambridge his talents were quickly recognized by Professor Thomson. During his first spell at the Cavendish Laboratory, he invented a detector for electromagnetic waves, an essential feature being an ingenious magnetizing coil containing tiny bundles of magnetized iron wire. He worked jointly with Thomson on the behaviour of the ions observed in gases which had been treated with X-rays, and also, in 1897, on the mobility of ions in relation to the strength of the electric field, and on related topics such as the photoelectric effect. In 1898 he reported the existence of alpha and beta rays in uranium radiation and indicated some of their properties.
In Montreal, there were ample opportunities for research at McGill, and his work on radioactive bodies, particularly on the emission of alpha rays, was continued in the Macdonald Laboratory. With R. B. Owens he studied the "emanation" of thorium and discovered a new noble gas, an isotope of radon, which was later to be known as thoron. Frederick Soddy arrived at McGill in 1900 from Oxford, and he collaborated with Rutherford in creating the "disintegration theory" of radioactivity which regards radioactive phenomena as atomic - not molecular - processes. The theory was supported by a large amount of experimental evidence, a number of new radioactive substances were discovered and their position in the series of transformations was fixed. Otto Hahn, who later discovered atomic fission, worked under Rutherford at the Montreal Laboratory in 1905-06.
At Manchester, Rutherford continued his research on the properties of the radium emanation and of the alpha rays and, in conjunction with H. Geiger, a method of detecting a single alpha particle and counting the number emitted from radium was devised. In 1910, his investigations into the scattering of alpha rays and the nature of the inner structure of the atom which caused such scattering led to the postulation of his concept of the "nucleus", his greatest contribution to physics. According to him practically the whole mass of the atom and at the same time all positive charge of the atom is concentrated in a minute space at the centre. In 1912 Niels Bohr joined him at Manchester and he adapted Rutherford's nuclear structure to Max Planck's quantum theory and so obtained a theory of atomic structure which, with later improvements, mainly as a result of Heisenberg's concepts, remains valid to this day. In 1913, together with H. G. Moseley, he used cathode rays to bombard atoms of various elements and showed that the inner structures correspond with a group of lines which characterize the elements. Each element could then be assigned an atomic number and, more important, the properties of each element could be defined by this number. In 1919, during his last year at Manchester, he discovered that the nuclei of certain light elements, such as nitrogen, could be "disintegrated" by the impact of energetic alpha particles coming from some radioactive source, and that during this process fast protons were emitted. Blackett later proved, with the cloud chamber, that the nitrogen in this process was actually transformed into an oxygen isotope, so that Rutherford was the first to deliberately transmute one element into another. G.de Hevesy was also one of Rutherford's collaborators at Manchester.
An inspiring leader of the Cavendish Laboratory, he steered numerous future Nobel Prize winners towards their great achievements: Chadwick, Blackett, Cockcroft and Walton; while other laureates worked with him at the Cavendish for shorter or longer periods: G. P. Thomson, Appleton, Powell, and Aston. C.D. Ellis, his co-author in 1919 and 1930, pointed out "that the majority of the experiments at the Cavendish were really started by Rutherford's direct or indirect suggestion". He remained active and working to the very end of his life.
Rutherford published several books: Radioactivity (1904); Radioactive Transformations (1906), being his Silliman Lectures at Yale University; Radiation from Radioactive Substances, with James Chadwick and C. D. Ellis (1919, 1930) - a thoroughly documented book which serves as a chronological list of his many papers to learned societies, etc.; The Electrical Structure of Matter (1926); The Artificial Transmutation of the Elements (1933) ; The Newer Alchemy (1937)
Rutherford was knighted in 1914; he was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1925, and in 1931 he was created First Baron Rutherford of Nelson, New Zealand, and Cambridge. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1903 and was its President from 1925 to 1930. Amongst his many honours, he was awarded the Rumford Medal (1905) and the Copley Medal (1922) of the Royal Society, the Bressa Prize (1910) of the Turin Academy of Science, the Albert Medal (1928) of the Royal Society of Arts, the Faraday Medal (1930) of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, the D.Sc. degree of the University of New Zealand, and honorary doctorates from the Universities of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, McGill, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Melbourne, Yale, Glasgow, Giessen, Copenhagen, Cambridge, Dublin, Durham, Oxford, Liverpool, Toronto, Bristol, Cape Town, London and Leeds.
Rutherford married Mary Newton, only daughter of Arthur and Mary de Renzy Newton, in 1900. Their only child, Eileen, married the physicist R. H. Fowler. Rutherford's chief recreations were golf and motoring.
He died in Cambridge on October 19, 1937. His ashes were buried in the nave of Westminster Abbey, just west of Sir Isaac Newton's tomb and by that of Lord Kelvin. 010913
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wet dream Alberti 'On Painting' - Notes 1-60 - Notes 61-84
Alberti, Leon Battista. On Painting. [First appeared 1435-36] Translated with Introduction and Notes by John R. Spencer. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1970 [First printed 1956].
B o o k T w o
Because this [process of] learning may perhaps appear a fatiguing thing to young people, I ought to prove here that painting is not unworthy of consuming all our time and study.
Painting contains a divine force which not only makes absent men present, as friendship is said to do, [1] but moreover makes the dead seem almost alive. Even after many centuries they are recognized with great pleasure and with great admiration for the painter. Plutarch says that Cassander, one of the captains of Alexander, trembled through all his body because he saw a portrait of his King. [2] Agesilaos, the Lacedaemonian, never permitted anyone to paint him or to represent him in sculpture; his own form so displeased him that he avoided being known by those who would come after him. [3] Thus the face of a man who is already dead certainly lives a long life through painting. Some think that painting shaped the gods who were adored by the nations. It certainly was their greatest gift to mortals, for painting is most useful to that piety [4] which joins us to the gods and keeps our souls full of religion. They say that Phidias made in Aulis a god Jove so beautiful that it considerably strengthened the religion then current. [5]
The extent to which painting contributes to the most honorable delights of the soul and to the dignified beauty of things can be clearly seen not only from other things but [p. 63] especially from this: you can conceive of almost nothing so precious which is not made far richer and much more beautiful by association with painting. Ivory, gems and similar expensive things become more precious when worked by the hand of the painter. Gold worked by the art of painting outweighs an equal amount of unworked gold. If figures were made by the hand of Phidias or Praxiteles from lead itself--the lowest of metals--they would be valued more highly than silver. The painter, Zeuxis, began to give away his things because, as he said, they could not be bought. [6] He did not think it possible to come to a just price which would be satisfactory to the painter, for in painting animals he set himself up almost as a god.
Therefore, painting contains within itself this virtue that any master painter who sees his works adored will feel himself considered another god. Who can doubt that painting is the master art or at least not a small ornament of things? The architect, if I am not mistaken, takes from the painter architraves, bases, capitals, columns, façades and other similar things. All the smiths, sculptors, shops and guilds are governed by the rules and art of the painter. It is scarcely possible to find any superior art which is not concerned with painting. [7] so that whatever beauty is found can be said to be born of painting . [8] Moreover, painting was given the highest honour by our ancestors. For, although almost all other artists were called craftsmen, the painter alone was not considered in that category. For this reason, I say among my friends that Narcissus who was changed into a flower, according to the poets, was the inventor of panting. Since painting is already the flower of every art, the story of Narcissus is most to the point. What else can you call painting but a similar embracing with art of what is presented on the surface of the water in the fountain?
Quintilian said that the ancient painters used to circumscribe shadows cast by the sun, and from this our art has grown. [9] There are those who say that a certain Philocles, an Egyptian, and a Cleantes were among the first inventors of this art. The Egyptians affirm that painting was in use among them a good [p. 64] 6000 years before it was carried into Greece. [10] They say that painting was brought to us from Greece after the victory of Marcellus over Sicily. [11] But we are not interested in knowing who was the inventor of the art or the first painter, since we are not telling stories like Pliny. We are, however, building anew an art of painting about which nothing, as I see it, has been written in this age. They say the Euphranor of Isthmus wrote something about measure and about colours, that Antigonos and Xenocrates exchanged [12] something in their letters about painting, and that Apelles wrote to Pelleus about painting. Diogenes Laertius recounts that Demetrius made commentaries on painting. [13] Since all the other arts were recommended in letters by our great men, and since painting was not neglected by our Latin writers, I believe that our ancient Tuscan [ancestors] were already most expert masters in painting.
Trismegistus, an ancient writer, judged that painting and sculpture were born at the same time as religion, [14] for thus he answered Aesclepius: mankind portrays the gods in his own image from his memories of nature and his own origins. Who can here deny that in all things public and private, profane and religious, painting has taken all the most honourable parts to itself so that nothing has ever been so esteemed by mortals?
The incredible esteem in which painted panels have been held has been recorded. Aristides the Theban sold a single picture for one hundred talents. They say that Rhodes was not burned by King Demetrius for fear that a painting of Protogenes' should perish. [15] It could be said that the city of Rhodes was ransomed from the enemy by a single painting. Pliny [16] collected many other such things in which you can see that good painters have always been greatly honoured by all. The most noble citizens, philosophers and quite a few kings not only enjoyed painted things but also painted with their own hands. Lucius Manilius, Roman citizen, and Fabius, a most noble man, were painters. Turpilius, a Roman Knight, painted at Verona. Sitedius, praetor and proconsul, acquired renown as a [p. 65] painter. Pacuvius, tragic poet and nephew of the poet Ennius, painted Hercules in the Roman forum. Socrates, Plato, Metrodorus, Pyrrho were connoisseurs of painting. The emperors Nero, Valentinian, and Alexander Severus were most devoted to painting. It would be too long, however, to recount here how many princes and kings were pleased by painting. Nor does it seem necessary to me to recount all the throng of ancient painters. Their number is seen in the fact that 360 statues, part on horseback and part in chariots, were completed in four hundred days for Demetrius Phalerius, son of Phanostratus. [17] In a land in which there was such a great number of sculptors, can you believe that painters were lacking? I am certain that both these arts are related and nurtured by the same genius, painting with sculpture. But I always give higher rank to the genius of the painter because he works with more difficult things.
However, let us return to our work. Certainly the number of sculptors and painters was great in those times when princes and plebeians, learned and unlearned enjoyed painting, and when painted panels and portraits, considered the choicest booty from the provinces, were set up in the theatre. Finally L. Paulus Aemilius [18] and not a few other Roman citizens taught their sons painting along with the fine arts and the art of living piously and well. This excellent custom was frequently observed among the Greeks who, because they wished their sons to be well educated, taught them painting along with geometry and music. It was also an honour among women to know how to paint. Martia, daughter of Varro, is praised by the writers because she knew how to paint. Painting had such reputation and honour among the Greeks that laws and edicts were passed forbidding slaves to learn painting. It was certainly well that they did this, for the art of painting has always been most worthy of liberal minds and noble souls. [19]
As for me, I certainly consider a great appreciation of painting to be the best indication of a most perfect mind, even though it happens that this art is pleasing to the uneducated as [p. 66] well as to the educated. It occurs rarely in any other art that what delights the experienced also moves the inexperienced. In the same way you will find that many greatly desire to be well versed in painting. Nature herself seems to delight in painting, for in the cut faces of marble she often paints centaurs and faces of bearded and curly headed kings. It is said, moreover, that in a gem from Pyrrhus all nine Muses, each with her symbol, are be found clearly painted by nature. [20] Add to this that in no other art does it happen that both the experienced and the inexperienced of every age apply themselves so voluntarily to the learning and exercising of it. Allow me to speak of myself here. Whenever I turn to painting for my recreation, which I frequently do when I am tired of more pressing affairs, I apply myself to it with so much pleasure that I am surprised that three or four hours have passed. [21] Thus this art gives pleasure and praise to whoever is skilled in it; riches and perpetual fame to one who is master of it. Since these things are so, since painting is the best and most ancient ornament of things, worthy of free men, pleasing to learned and unlearned, I greatly encourage our studious youth to exert themselves as much as possible in painting.
Therefore, I recommend that he who is devoted to painting should learn this art. The first great care of one who seeks to obtain eminence in painting is to acquire the fame and renown of the ancients. It is useful to remember that avarice is always the enemy of virtue. Rarely can anyone given to acquisition of wealth acquire renown. I have seen many in the first flower of learning suddenly sink to money-making. As a result they acquire neither riches nor praise. However, if they had increased their talent with study, they would have easily soared into great renown. Then they would have acquired much riches and pleasure.
Enough has been said of this up to here. Let us return to our subject. Painting is divided into three parts; these divisions we have taken from nature. [p. 67]
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