Da Vinci Notes #36 - Build In Buffer Time

 

ON PERSPECTIVE.

 

The eye which turns from a white object in the light of the sun and

goes into a less fully lighted place will see everything as dark.

And this happens either because the pupils of the eyes which have

rested on this brilliantly lighted white object have contracted so

much that, given at first a certain extent of surface, they will

have lost more than 3/4 of their size; and, lacking in size, they

are also deficient in [seeing] power.

 

Though you might say to me: A little bird (then) coming down would

see comparatively little, and from the smallness of his pupils the

white might seem black! To this I should reply that here we must

have regard to the proportion of the mass of that portion of the brain

which is given up to the sense of sight and to nothing else. Or to return

- this pupil in Man dilates and contracts according to the brightness or

darkness of (surrounding) objects; and since it takes some time to dilate

and contract, it cannot see immediately on going out of the light and

into the shade, nor, in the same way, out of the shade into the

light, and this very thing has already deceived me in painting an