Leonardo da Vinci Eye Quotations

Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!

The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies every thing placed in front of it without being conscious of their existence.

There is no object so large but that at a great distance from the eye it does not appear smaller than a smaller object near.

The eye sees a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination awake.

The human being, creature of eyes, needs the image.

In an atmosphere of uniform density the most distant things seen through it, such as the mountains, in consequence of the great quantity of atmosphere which is between your eye and them, will appear blue. Therefore you should make the building... wall which is more distant less defined and bluer... five times as far away, make five times as blue.

Although the poet has as wide a choice of subjects as the painter, his creations fail to afford as much satisfaction to mankind as do paintings... if the poet serves the understanding by way of the ear, the painter does so by the eye, which is the nobler sense.

The soul is content to stay imprisoned in the human body... for through the eyes all the various things of nature are represented to the soul.

The instant the atmosphere is illuminated it will be filled with an infinite number of images which are produced by the various bodies and colours assembled in it. And the eye is the target, a lodestone, of these images.

Of several bodies all equally larger and distant, that most brightly illuminated will appear to the eye nearest and largest.

The painter who draws by practise and judgment of the eye without the use of reason is like the mirror which reproduces within itself all the objects which are set opposite to it without knowledge of the same.

The mole has very small eyes and it always lives under ground; and it lives as long as it is in the dark but when it comes into the light it dies immediately, because it becomes known;--and so it is with lies.

The eye - which sees all objects reversed - retains the images for some time.

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.

Perspective is nothing more than a rational demonstration applied to the consideration of how objects in front of the eye transmit their image to it, by means of a pyramid of lines. The Pyramid is the name I apply to the lines which, starting from the surface and edges of each object, converge from a distance and meet in a single point.

The eye, the window of the soul, is the chief means whereby the understanding can most fully and abundantly appreciate the infinite works of Nature; and the ear is second.

I roamed the countryside searching for the answers to things I did not understand. Why shells existed on the tops of mountains along with the imprints of coral and plant and seaweed usually found in the sea. Why the thunder lasts a longer time than that which causes it and why immediately on its creation the lightening becomes visible to the eye while thunder requires time to travel. How the various circles of water form around the spot which has been struck by a stone and why a bird sustains itself in the air. These questions and other strange phenomena engaged my thought throughout my life.

The eye encompasses the beauty of the whole world.

Very great charm of shadow and light is to be found in the faces of those who sit in the doors of dark houses. The eye of the spectator sees that part of the face which is in shadow lost in the darkness of the house, and that part of the face which is lit draws its brilliancy from the splendour of the sky. From this intensification of light and shade the face gains greatly in relief and beauty by showing the subtlest shadows in the light part and the subtlest lights in the dark part.

The eye is the window of the human body through which it feels its way and enjoys the beauty of the world.

All objects transmit their image to the eye in pyramids and the nearer to the eye these pyramids are intersected the smaller will the image appear of the objects which cause them.

Thirst will parch your tongue and your body will waste through lack of sleep ere you can describe in words that which painting instantly sets before the eye.

The eye transmits its own image through the air to all the objects which face it, and also receives them on its own surface, whence the "sensus communis" takes them and considers them.

Drawing is based upon perspective, which is nothing else than a thorough knowledge of the function of the eye.

He who draws... ought to take his position so that the eye of the figure he is drawing is on a level with his own... because, generally, figures or people whom you meet in the streets all have their eyes at the same level as yours, and if you make them higher or lower you will find that your portrait will not resemble them.

There are three aspects to perspective. The first has to do with how the size of objects seems to diminish according to distance: the second, the manner in which colors change the farther away they are from the eye; the third defines how objects ought to be finished less carefully the farther away they are.

Look at light and admire its beauty. Close your eyes, and then look again: what you saw is no longer there; and what you will see later is not yet.

The worst evil which can befall the artist is that his work should appear good in his own eyes.