A Treatise on Painting/Chapter 222

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A Treatise on Painting
by Leonardo da Vinci, translated by John Francis Rigaud
What Surface is best calculated to receive most Colours
4016394A Treatise on Painting — What Surface is best calculated to receive most ColoursJohn Francis RigaudLeonardo da Vinci

Chap. CCXXII.What Surface is best calculated to receive most Colours.

White is more capable of receiving all sorts of colours, than the surface of any body whatever, that is not transparent. To prove it, we shall say, that any void space is capable of receiving what another space, not void, cannot receive. In the same manner, a white surface, like a void space, being destitute of any colour, will be fittest to receive such as are conveyed to it from any other enlightened body, and will participate more of the colour than black can do; which latter, like a broken vessel, is not able to contain any thing.