LEONARDO THE MUSICIAN
Many scholars accept this early painting as a self portrait of the young Leonardo as musician, holding a page of musical score. (Has anyone played this bit of music? hmmmm) Vasari claims that Leonardo was quite accomplished as a musician, but still after 500 years, this bit of Latin/Italian from Vasari's Lives of the Artists is still under contention:
"When Giovan Galeazzo, Duke of Milan, was dead, and Lodovico Sforza became duke in the year 1494, Leonardo was brought to Milan to play the lute before him, in which he greatly delighted. Leonardo brought an instrument which he had made himself, a new and strange thing made mostly of silver, in the form of a horse's head, that the tube might be larger and the sound more sonorous, by which he surpassed all the other musicians who were assembled there. Besides, he was the best improvisatore of his time. The duke, hearing his marvelous discourse, became enamored of his talents to an incredible degree, and prayed him to paint an altarpiece of the Nativity, which he sent to the emperor."
DID LEONARDO PRACTICE MUSIC PAINTING?
Well yes he did. If you take his notes on music and painting, he said the only thing deficient in music is that it disappears as soon as it is played. But the harmonies of relationships and measurements of each art form share the same concepts and demonstrations of beauty.
"Yet music, in its harmonic intervals, makes its suave melodies, which are composed from varied notes.... However, the harmonic proportinality of painting is composed simultaneously from various components, the sweetness of which may be judged instantaneously, both in its general and in its particular effects - in general according to the dictates of the composition; in particular according to the dictates of the component parts from which the totality is composed." If one understands that th8s is coming from the Musician and Painter Leonardo, it follows easily that he practiced the art of harmonious relationships in both.
I GIVE THE DEGREES OF THE OBJECTS SEEN BY THE EYE AS THE MUSICIAN
DOES THE NOTES HEARD BY THE EAR.
Although the objects seen by the eye do, in fact, touch each other
as they recede, I will nevertheless found my rule on spaces of 20
braccia each; as a musician does with notes, which, though they can
be carried on one into the next, he divides into degrees from note
to note calling them 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th; and has affixed a name
to each degree in raising or lowering the voice.
Take the Annunciation, one of his first great works:
Take the dark abstract shapes of the trees in the background, moving from left to right towards the large dark shape behind the Madonna. Can you see the rhythmic musical statement here? Let's look at Kandinsky's graphic representation of Beethoven's Fifth, second part:
Now I will attempt to "play for you" da Vinci's Annunciation as if it were a three part reel: (insert here annunciation three part reel painting
Yet music, in its harmonic intervals, makes its suave melodies, which are composed from varied notes.... However, the harmonic proportinality of painting is composed simultaneously from various components, the sweetness of which may be judged instantaneously, both in its general and in its particular effects - in general according to the dictates of the composition; in particular according to the dictates of the component parts from which the totality is composed.
..Painting excels and is superior in rank to music, because it does not perish immediately after its creation, as happens with unfortunate music.
"Leonardo was particularly concerned to establish painting as at least equal in rank to the mathematically based liberal arts (including music) and as superior to the literary arts.
Through the ear, music sends the various harmonies of diverse instruments to the sensus communis.
**He must have known, but neglected to mention, that the ancient Greek philosophers held music to be a higher art than painting, which was relegated to the crafts such as carpentry. The Greeks held music in high estate in part because you cannot see music, hence they found it had a certain mystery similar to religion. Leonardo did mention this last aspect of music in passing.**
**Leonardo also argued that for the true portrayal of Nature, painting, and not music, is the appropriate art.
It is a sin against nature to want to give to the ear what is meant for the eye. Let music enter there and do not try to put in her place the science of painting, the true imitator of all the shapes of nature. **
**In another case, in speaking of how the eye takes in an entire painting at once, Leonardo provides another analogy with music. Here he reveals a striking awareness of the power of music and the experience of the contemplative listener.**
And from painting which serves the eye, the noblest sense, arises harmony of proportions; just as many different voices joined together and singing simultaneously produce a harmonious proportion which gives such satisfaction to the sense of hearing that the listeners remain spellbound with admiration as if half alive.
Essays on the Origins of Western Music by David Whitwell
Some Musical Terms for Painting from Wikipedia Color and tone are the essence of painting as pitch and rhythm are of music.....Rhythm is important in painting as well as in music. Rhythm is basically a pause incorporated into a body (sequence). This pause allows creative force to intervene and add new creations—form, melody, coloration. The distribution of form, or any kind of information is of crucial importance in the given work of art and it directly affects the esthetical value of that work. This is because the esthetical value is functionality dependent, i.e. the freedom (of movement) of perception is perceived as beauty. Free flow of energy, in art as well as in other forms of "techne", directly contributes to the esthetical value*** (Wikipedia)
I GIVE THE DEGREES OF THE OBJECTS SEEN BY THE EYE AS THE MUSICIAN
DOES THE NOTES HEARD BY THE EAR.
Although the objects seen by the eye do, in fact, touch each other
as they recede, I will nevertheless found my rule on spaces of 20
braccia each; as a musician does with notes, which, though they can
be carried on one into the next, he divides into degrees from note
to note calling them 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th; and has affixed a name
to each degree in raising or lowering the voice.
Nothing ??therein illustrates VASARIS well-known statement:_ Avvenne
che morto Giovan Galeazze duca di Milano, e creato Lodovico Sforza
nel grado medesimo anno 1494, fu condotto a Milano con gran
riputazione Lionardo al duca, il quale molto si dilettava del suono
della lira, perche sonasse; e Lionardo porto quello strumento
ch'egli aveva di sua mano fabbricato d'argento gran parte, in forma
d'un teschio di cavallo, cosa bizzarra e nuova, acciocche l'armonia
fosse con maggior tuba e piu sonora di voce; laonde supero tutti i
musici che quivi erano concorsi a sonare.
This cannot apply to the sense of sight, because if you represent to the eye a human beauty composed of proportinately beautiful parts, this beauty will not be so impermanent or rapidly destroyed as that made by music.
According to Leonardo, music and painting both deal with the “proportions of continuous quantities”. Just as the musician measures the intervals of the voices heard by the ear, the painter measures the distance of things as they recede from the eye. The harmonic proportions of music were thus equated with the proportions of diminution in painting established by means of perspective. The “harmony”, which “delights the senses with sweet pleasure” in painting is no different from the proportionality made by diverse voices”.
universalleonardo.org
Essays on the Origins of Western Music by David Whitwell