On Reflection, Reverberation, re-reflected luster, or re-reflection345
The Seventh Chapter
(1) In speaking about Reflection or re-reflection,
One must begin with the reflected light of the Sun:
For its light is seen to outshine any other.
Clarity would depart from all the Stars*
Without the Sun’s reflected luster,346
Which bestows on the Heavens their fine appearance,
Is the Soul of the World amidst the Planets,
And ought not, in our endeavor, to be forgotten.347
(2) So, when the night, with its black sails,*
Dark in mien, perforce retreats from the field, taking flight,
And fine things in every place
On the face of the Earth are unveiled once again,
Then may one see in the lowering clouds
A Reverberation or re-reflection of the Sun348
When its daylight brings joy,
Spreading a multitude of colors throughout the Sky.
(3) It gratifies heart and sense
To see coming forth at dawn
The chief light of the Terrestrial World, with its golden rays
Sowing the azure field of the East
With red Roses and purple Blossoms.
How could one christen any Reflection more beautiful
Than this which many Poets of old
Described in so painterly and artful a fashion?349
(4) About Aurora (as the Poets say)*
Cephalus did recount to Phocus
How she sat on mount Hymettus,
Which blooms eternally, immune to decay:350
Her mouth was redder than Coral,
And she, in rising and setting,
Did ever remember to gift the morning and the evening
With its first and last light.
(5) Just as Aurora reveals her florid lips*
Early in the morning and late in the evening,
So, too, in the day’s sinking out of sight, and in its coming into view,351
Towers, Houses, Trees, Mountains, and Clifftops
Are dyed red by her garments;
And so, too, the Painter must earnestly and closely watch
To portray the presence of Aurora
Upon Mountains and Rocks in the shimmering air.
(6) When the Sun sets, one sees diverse things
Appear redder in color:*
The surface of the earth, stones, and bricks,
And likewise Persons’ faces,
Where the rays of the Sun strike them,
Or, namely, produce a bright reflex of light,352
Causing them at once to blush ruddily,
So that they come to share a color fiery and glowing.353
(7) Now, when Phoebus with his swift Horses354
Goes running toward the great Oceanus
To take shelter beneath the evening star,
One may observe stretching from there toward the shore
A glistening stripe on the Sea.
Like a chameleon, the water will usually adapt,
Taking on the color
Of that which is above or beside it.355
(8) The Sea or water transparent and shallow,*
The mirror of the Heavens, limpidly lustrous, crystalline,
Therein one sees the blushing cheeks
Of Tithonus’s full-loving Bride356
Mirrored mornings and evenings,
And this all the more exactly
When Eolus’s men-at-arms do not occupy the Air357
And block her entry thither with thick, dark rain clouds.
(9) Colors and Figures many and varied*
Are to be seen in clouds, expanding
And contracting, diverse in style
According as the substance of fire
Or the thickness of the clouds holds its sway:
Now must our subject yet turn
Toward reverberation in the clouds,
Which all folks find fine and wonderful to see.
(10) Just opposite the Sun is to be found,
Usually during the short days of Autumn,
A semi-circular Ring or circle, large and wide open,*
Which does show itself
When the Sun begins to decline or descend,
For then in height it occupies its farthest reach;
But not to withhold the name,
I mean the many-hued Rainbow,
(11) That age-old sign placed by the Lord
Between him, Noah, and all Human souls,
And all living Things on the face of the earth,
That he would not again
Violently destroy all flesh in a Deluge:360
But if there be any questions
Concerning that second bow, I consider it*
To be nothing more than the re-reflected light of the first.361
(12) For it well seems that one sometimes sees*
Revealed in the rising or setting of the sun
Multiple Suns, and yet it would not be creditable
To claim that there were many Suns;
Rather, far more likely these are reflections:
For in a clear sky free of clouds
One sees no such spectacle,
Barring a great miracle.
(13) Moreover, one spots the Rainbow only
When the sky is covered with clouds,
And so, one may here build on Pliny:
It must come from a cloud hollow as if excavated,
Which catches the reflected light of the Sun;
But as for its roundness,
I would ascribe this not to the cloud
But to the roundness of the Sun.362
(14) Pliny reckons that the Rainbow*
Is daily to be seen above
Lacus Velinus in the Duchy
Of Spoleto, which (as far as I know) is now called
The Lake of Piediluco.363 It may credibly be thought
That the River Nera discharges from a point
Just a bit farther from there, falling with a great roar
From a very high mountain into a deep dale.
(15) This River, having drawn its source
From this Lake, which freely bestows its waters
By Terni, between Venice and Rome,
Falls from the cliff face so clamorously*
Onto the hollow rocks that it makes one shudder,
With noise so loud that one person
Can hardly broach a subject to another
Without almost placing ear to mouth.364
(16) A plenitude of fog and mist rises*
From this powerful waterfall at all times,
Wherein one daily catches sight of the Rainbow
Amongst the Lord’s natural works,
Whenever the Sun shines in, from whichever side.
I myself have seen it, as I here profess:
For on occasion, wandering from out of Terni,
I dared to traverse a quantity of those small miles.
(17) Besides differing a bit from Pliny
As regards the lie of the land, I also feel myself compelled,
With reference to what has here been recounted, to help silence
Those who would wish to say
That a hollow cloud bends the Reflection into the form of a bow:
For at Tivoli, where a variety*
Of very high Fountains spring aloft, their beauty not to be bettered,
I saw the Rainbow exhibit itself yet again
(18) In the damp Air, wherein
The bright, shining Sun shoots its rays;365
But whence the Rainbow derives*
Its fine colors, if they who have written about this
Are not mistaken,
It pleasurably elicits those same colors
From the clouds, drawing them forth together
Out of the Air and fire that mingle there.366
(19) Ezechiel, an ordained Prophet,*
Saw the glory of the Lord shining round
Like the Rainbow that strikes People’s eyes
In the clouds after rain.367
One may here also bring to mind John [the Evangelist],**
Who heard a voice resounding like a trumpet blast,
And also saw, his senses watchful,
The Rainbow round the Throne, sumptuous like an Emerald.368
(20) Concerning the figure of the Rainbow,
Jesus Sirach says: Praise him*
Whose creation and creature it is,
For it possesses (says he) very fine, pure colors,
Like unto those in the curtain whence
The High-Priest Simon came forth,
Who with his adornments in the Temple precinct
Resembled the Rainbow with its fine, bright colors.369
(21) Also what the Poets suppose [to be true] about Iris:371*
How [she] wears a pluricolored mantle,372
Radiantly beautiful; so, too, all this is said specially
About the Rainbow.
In portraying it
One must be mindful of the partitioning of colors;373
How subtly they flow, passing from hue to hue,
And how each grows out of the other.
(22) Closest to us comes purple, then a flesh-tint,374*
Or whitish carmine, if you would paint it well;
Next, a kind of orange, or an opulent red,
Then massicot yellow, followed by a delicate green,
Then bright azure, like the Peacock’s neck feathers,
Thereafter purple once again:
With a checker-board mantle such as this,
Juno’s messenger, she who opens the way, is wont to preen.
(23) Everyone ought to take note of
Mute Poetry, wherein
Certain colors are not loath to be matched:375
For example, blue by purple, and purple by red,*
And by red, yellow, which looks orange;
Then, light yellow has green as its friend,
And green may well consort with blue;
Also, green is mixed from ash blue and yellow.376
(24) In such a manner, as if following sure Laws,
Painters of wet plaster prepare their palettes or boards*
Before setting to work,
And Oil Painters, too, ought
To order their palettes accordingly:377
White closest to hand, then out of each darker shade378
Two or three lighter ones;379
These things are handy and profitable.
(25) For Painters do but gain time*
By spending time on mixing colors,
But with respect to this, we need brook no argument:
Instead closely imitating [the effect of] Reverberation,
As of Moonlight, fire, lightning, candlelight, and the flame of a forge;380
One should intently consider how each of these**
Illuminates its surroundings,
Bringing forth a like form [of light].
(26) The Night’s [source of] light, the Moon,
Making her mark on Houses and Churches, above and below,
Bestows a pale glow, wherever she reaches,
Just as she herself is pale;
Likewise lightning,
The harbinger of fell thunder,
With its bluish fire causes darkness to depart,
And with [darkness’] flight brings its Reflection to light.
(27) Were we to read in Pliny, we would find
That the Art of Reflection was also utilized in olden days
By Antiphilus who, being no fool,*
Had painted a youth lying down to blow
Upon a flame, stoking it with conviction,
And his breath did cause reflected lights
To be seen throughout the interior of a fine dwelling;
So, too, the blowing boy’s face deftly flickered.381
(28) Echion, about whom we have spoken elsewhere,*
Also wished to display the Art of Reflection,
Having shown, through the diffusion of light,
A beautiful young Bride being led to her [marriage] bed,
Following the footsteps an older Matron;
For she, in order to gild the darkness,
Carried before her a fiery, burning Torch,
And [the Bride] trod behind, her presence stately.382
(29) In the Furioso the man of Ferrara, justly styled a Poet*
Recounts things in such wise
That they seem painted.
So sweetly does he describe Ruggiero and Alcina
That they virtually enchant the Reader,
As she ceremoniously leads him to her bedchamber
After a sumptuous banquet,
More freely to delight in his company.383
(30) With much Torchlight the Pages marched
In front, chasing away the darkness.
In the company of merry Fellows
Ruggiero did find soft feather-beds,
For his pleasure o’erspread with sweet scents,
Upon which lay linens [sprinkled with] rosewater,
Spun from white thread so fine
That they seemed woven by Arachne herself.
(31) Disastrous fires burning fiercely (a cause of terror
To Human hearts), as they rise [ever] higher
Make with their sparks a crackling blaze;
As night’s sail is darker and denser,*
So the powerful, living flames are brighter:
They tint the reflected light cast
Onto Houses, Temples, or other buildings,
And also [cast] a fearsome spectacle onto the water.
(32) They exercise an imperial sway over Art*
Who portray Vulcan’s ire well in color,
That desolation so ghastly:
For the fuel or stuff whereby**
His fierce flames are fed,
Flying heavenward, difficult to tame,
From this, too, they receive their color,
Whether tending to red, purple, blue, or green.384
(33) Not the flames alone but also the smoke*
Fills the Air with various colors,
So that it seems indeed like the foul, smothering smoke
Of the Styx, where with frightful spooks,
Hydra and Cerberus shriek and bellow:
Thus shall the Painters consider this,**
How to make a show of dire flames,
Or how to stoke the fire of the Poets’ Hells.385
(34) Candlelight, a thing rare [in painting],*
Is difficult to fashion artfully:
It looks good to advance a Figure from the brown darkness,
Overshadowing it from feet to crown,
Letting the light graze
Only the silhouette of bared hair or of drapery;
Also, the shadows must take their course in every direction,
Starting from a point or strip of light.
(35) So, too, to fashion the naked limbs*
Of Vulcan [and] the Cyclopes, whose ferocity
Did make Mount Gibello tremble
When they forged Jupiter’s thunderbolts,386
One may wholly shadow one of their cohort against the light,
And marry to it the firelight
Grazing its front contour here and there,
Wherever the occasion permits.
(36) But they who stand behind the fiery sparks
Must bear the livery of re-reflected light
Gifted them by the glowing ironworks,
Which there colors the rocky cave
With shadows and fiery highlights;387
Coming from below they also strike
The bristly, stern faces
Which gaze with sullen intensity at their rough employment.
(37) One may anticipate where the light, from its resting place,388
Must bind itself to shadow as reflected light.
But speaking of daylight and night,
In the Roman Vatican it shines powerfully,*
There where Peter lies in heavy sleep
Between two Soldiers, on whose weapons
The reflected light of the Angel come into the dungeon
Testifies admirably to Raphael’s abilities as a practitioner [of the Art of Reflection].
(38) One also sees Peter walking away with the Angel,*
While a Sentinel, coming to awaken another Watch,
Holds in his hands a Torch;
And in the same place, the reflected light of this torch-fire
Strikes the cuirasses,
As also does the Moonlight, at other spots. There, too,
He took into account how daylight entering from a window
Would give to these lights a natural brilliance.
(39) Amongst all those wont to produce
Figured Panels in [oil] colors
With beams of [re-]reflected luster,
The elder Bassano could deceive the eyes*
Exceptionally well and naturally:
For one’s eyes appear truly to see
Flames, Torches, fiery hanging lamps,
Pots and Pans catching the reflected light,
(40) Copper, Tin, Iron implements,
Fleecy Sheep and all sorts of Animals,
The annunciation to the Shepherds, the flight into Egypt,
Various night scenes, and subtly grouped
Figures that likewise impart grace to the picture:
One sees a multitude of canvases in oil color,
Curiously devised by this Townsman and expert colorist,389
Well and skillfully made, and playful.390
(41) In sum: the heights this Man has scaled
In expressing artful Reflection well,
Not fame alone but also that assayer of gold, Battus,
Has made known in many Lands:391
For in the Capital City [of Rome] I chanced to see*
Some nocturnal Passion scenes
Wherein the stone ground was of a piece with the manifold darkness,
And the rays of light were [applied] in goldpoint.392
(42) But why do I talk about foreigners,
When I ought to be thinking of Coignet,*
A Netherlandish-Italian Painter,
To whom all colors were subject,
And to be sure, none dared overstep
His Laws, but must rather comply
With his every thought,
Doing and becoming whatsoever he ordained.393
(43) And when they were powerless to fulfill394
The outermost bounds of his intention,
Then did he boldly go with the son of Japetus
To the chariot of the King of the Planets:395
For by artful use of gold*
He brought his fire and light to life,
So that the fires lay glowing and sparkling,
And the lights stood about like twinkling stars.
(44) With colors he can make Pluto’s city burn*
Astonishingly, or annihilate Troy,
[Show] Judith by night, displaying the head of Holofernes,
With Torches and Firebrands, also Lanterns
In the streets, and a confluence of people in the distance;
Such as the Lottery,
Which the regents of the Madhouse of Amsterdam had him make,
Not to speak of other things by him, elsewhere to be seen.396
(45) Furthermore, in that Pictura is now as favorable to Batavia,
As she formerly was to Sicyon,397
So has Nature come forth to shake gifts from out of her lap
Upon the harbor town of Haarlem398
Into the bosoms of two residents living there;
One of them by rights a Painter, whose*
Plato’s Cave, wherein is Art of no common strain,
Is to be found in Amsterdam.399
(46) There one sees Reflections slip away in every direction,
But a troop of men lying trapped in the dark
Appears to dispute with Arguments400
About the shadows of Figures projected by Lamplight;
Others, being free, see the figures together with the shadows;
Still others, farther away, stooping not a whit,
Had cast their high gaze Heavenward,
But the meaning [of all this] I leave to him whose work it is.401
(47) The other [Haarlemer] wished fully to train
In the practice of line-drawing and engraving,402
Finally, also in Painting, and to make himself known
As a Phoenix with golden pinions;403*
And what metal shall not yield before singular gold,404
Or what light be compared to the peerless Sun,
Whereto [the Phoenix] alone is worthy to be consecrated405
And to bear the name of the tree of Victory.406
(48) One saw [rendered] by him in the Art of Line*
On Attalus’s parchment,407
Find-wine, Give-lust, Escape-care,408
Beside Abundance, adorned with clusters of grapes.409
To prevent pleasure from growing cold in their midst,
Love was blowing on a fire, stoking its flames,
Whereupon Reflection, another of Echo’s offspring,
Conveyed a reflected light onto the Figures.410
(49) This Daedalian opus,411 wherein*
The beauteous Graces rejoice to see themselves,
May in our day adorn the pleasure garden of the Hesperides:412
And to them who envy the honor granted to foreigners,
Fame’s trumpet blast brings a double misery:
For as was the case with Zeuxis’s wrestlers, easier will it be**
To chide this work brimming with the mysteries of Art,
Than to make anything as good.413
(50) Now departing from the darkness of night,
Finding ourselves where daylight is seasonable,
In that joyful time [of the year],
Lying and sitting amidst green meadows,
To divert ourselves.
There reflected light begins to do its work;*
For in our faces and bare flesh, we become party to the green**
Of the trees’ foliage, grasses, and plants.
(51) Likewise, where faces or naked bodies
Are shadowed, adjacent to wool, silk, or linen,
Reflection will export their characteristic [colors];
Be they yellowish or reddish, the Flesh-tint*
Shall partake of such reflected lights:
So, too, where the Muscles fade into each other,
There one sees a Reverberation,
As of Flesh-tint against Flesh-tint.
(52) Also on round columns, one sees revealed
A reflected highlight, and elsewhere, too, on bases,
White Egg shapes, and Marble spheres,
All the more when lit objects are placed alongside them;
Moreover, gold or silver vessels, vases,*
Clear, transparent ice, and glasses in which
Wine has been poured, stain tablecloths with reflected lights:415
Painters must pay attention to all this.
(53) One sees markedly lustrous and shining lights
Rebound and carom from many more things,
Whereof each particular lesson
May be gleaned through diligent attention to Nature,
The Painters’ Mistress:
In what manner lustrous Fish, Tins and coppers,
Mutually reverberate.
To take an example, the panels of long Peter.416
(54) Apropos these things, this Man played the pipes*
Wonderfully well with colors:
Everything seemed alive, the green with the ripe;
You would have thought it possible to grasp
Several chargers sitting in the dark,
Struck by just this sort of re-reflected light,
As anyone who burns with fond desire may see
At the home of an Art-lover in Amsterdam.417
(55) To sum up: in Art he flew high,*
Bringing Reflection subtly to pass;
Yes, a great, skillful, cunning deceiver
Of People’s eyes, and also a witty liar:
For one presumes to see all sorts of things,
But they are mere color that he knows how to mix,
Causing the flat to appear round, and the level to project,
The mute to speak, and the dead to live.
(56) I have not lost sight of a History,*
On the Loggia of Raphael, wherein
Isaac makes love with his Wife,
And the Sun shines into the chamber:418
The artful burin of praiseworthy Dürer
Has likewise displayed the Sun’s Reflection
In his Jerome in his Study,
Compared to which nothing better or more skillful has been seen.419
(57) With reflected luster and crystalline beams,*
More numerous than one could dream,
We wish to conclude, recounting
How one sees mirrored downward perfectly
In the placid surface of clear standing water
Plants, irises, Mountains, Houses, and trees,
Also Cattle drinking, Sheep, Cows, Horses,
Or an assortment of birds refreshing themselves therein.
(58) We find a wild, beautiful place*
Described by the second Maro, deftly and artfully,
Whither Angelica, fleeing from Rinaldo, comes
Into a green, fragrant Coppice
Where cold Aura makes the leaflets tremble,
And two clear Streams, sluggish in their flowing,
Rustle gently against small rocks,
And do ever make plantlets newly to sprout.420
(59) Nearby stood a small Hut full [overgrown] with thornbushes
And red Roses, delightful of scent,
Whereof this clear little stream between tall Oaks
Where the Sun could not come, might be called a mirror;
Here hidden in the innermost shade
A space opened up that might serve as a chill dwelling,
Beneath branches and foliage so thick
That the Sun could not pierce, nor much be seen.
(60) The tender plants therein,
Which made for an inviting bed, gladsome to all,
Sweetly enticed the tired, hot, thirsty
To come hither and take their rest:
Thus for Painters is it not ill-advised
To read Poetic verses,
For they can instill, teach, and waken
Many things that conduce to painting.
(61) Finally, O you lusty Young Sons of Giges421
Wandering in Pictura’s labyrinth,*
Driven earnestly to learn her ways,
Whithersoever you roam, that you come forth with joy,
Let the skein of Nature be urged upon you;422
Attentively school your eyes by cleaving to her,
And let labor not dishearten you:
So may you enjoy a happy outcome.
End of Reflection.
Footnotes
*
Pliny, book 2, chapter 6.
*
On the Dawn.
*
Aurora is the redness of both the evening and the morning.
*
How everything looks redder in the rising and setting of the Sun.
*
At Sunset all things become redder in color.
*
The Sea or water is a mirror of the Heavens.
*
On Figures [produced] in the clouds through reflection of the Sun.358
*
On the Rainbow in the clouds, which is a Reflection of the Sun.359
*
The Rainbow, giving forth reflected light, produces a second bow.
*
On Reflections of the Sun that sometimes appear to be more than one Sun.
*
[Pliny], book 2, chapter 62.
*
On a beautiful waterfall.
*
The Rainbow is seen in the mist issuing from the waterfall near Terni.
*
Also at Tivoli in the Basins from out of which Fountains spring.
*
From where the Rainbow has its colors.
*
Ezechiel 28:19.
**
Apocalypse 4:3.
*
[Jesus] Sirach 43:24.370
*
The Poets’ Iris, messenger of Juno, is the Rainbow.
*
The Rainbow’s colors.
*
Painters must observe in the Rainbow which colors go well together.
*
Those who work on wet plaster modulate each color into two or three lighter shades, placing white closest to hand [on their palettes].
*
To temper colors is no waste of time; rather, it is most profitable.
**
One must pay close attention to the colors and forms of all sorts of light, and learn how to distinguish amongst them.
*
Example of a [youth] blowing a flame, made by the ancient Painter Antiphilus.
*
Example of a Bride led to bed by torchlight.
*
Example from Ariosto in his Furioso, Canto 7.
*
On painting fire in darkness, with its reverberations.
*
That it is an Art to paint conflagrations well.
**
That flames take their form from the stuff with which they are fed.
*
That not only flames but also smoke is varied in color.
**
On painting the Poets’ Hells.
*
On Candlelight: how one shall paint it.
*
On painting Vulcan’s forge and similar things.
*
Example of painted night, with various lights, made by Raphael.
*
This work in fresco is to be found in the Pope’s palace, as one may read in the life of Raphael.
*
The elder Bassano was exceptional at painting night scenes and making the lights reflect subtly.
*
I saw these small works in Rome, and they were painted on panels of slate.
*
Coignet, too, was adept at fires and lights.
*
Coignet painted candlelight that appeared to burn, with raised bits of gilt husk.
*
Examples of some works by Coignet.
*
Another Example, of Plato’s Cave, which picture, made by Cornelis Cornelisz. of Haarlem, is in Amsterdam.
*
Pliny writes that some of the Phoenix’s pinions or feathers are golden.
*
This was a large picture in pen on parchment, a Venus, Bacchus, and Ceres, with Cupid blowing on a fire.
*
This was made by Goltzius in Rome.
**
Pliny, book 35, chapter 9.414
*
On the Reflection of greenery in nudes, there where one sits amidst green meadows and gardens.
**
On the re-reflection of colored things onto naked [flesh].
*
Large flat Reflections sometimes look good, but one must ensure that the small reflected lights cause the nudes to become neither dry nor awkward.
*
That Painters must pay heed to reflections of all sorts.
*
Example of reflected luster in a Kitchen piece painted by long Peter, which is to be seen in the home of the children of the art-loving Jacob Rauwaert.
*
Praise of the Art of old tall Peter.
*
Examples of reflected Sunshine, one by Raphael, the other [engraved] with the burin by Albrecht Dürer.
*
On Reflections to be seen in water.
*
A fine Example from Ariosto, in Il furioso, [Canto] 1, stanza 35: wherein is to be noted that Painters may profitably read the Poets’ inventions, and with colors imitate the same.
*
Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of twine whereby to get through the labyrinth of Minos: now are young Painters, that they come to a good end, advised to follow the thread of all the forms of nature.