Traitté de la Peinture

The Traitté de la Peinture (Treatise on Painting) by Leonardo da Vinci, published in 1651, is one of the most significant theoretical works in the history of Western art. Though Vinci died over a century before its printing, this volume compiles his detailed, practical, and philosophical notes on artistic principles, collected and arranged from his various manuscripts, most notably the Codex Urbinas. Classified as a Printed book, this specific piece is a critical material artifact documenting the dissemination of high Renaissance ideas into the Baroque period. The 1651 French edition, translated by Roland Fréart de Chambray, became immensely successful, standardizing critical discussions around fundamental artistic elements like drawing, perspective, light, and shadow.

The Treatise establishes Vinci’s core beliefs regarding the superiority of painting over poetry and sculpture. It covers diverse technical subjects from anatomy and proportion to color mixing and the effective use of atmospheric modeling, or sfumato. The detailed descriptions provided a foundational text for European academies and individual artists throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, profoundly influencing classical movements in France. This historically authoritative reference material remains highly valued by scholars today, evidenced by its inclusion in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As the original texts are now centuries old, numerous subsequent prints of Vinci’s influential work have entered the public domain, allowing for broad access to his pioneering artistic theories.