With very few exceptions, the art that preceded Leonardo was for the most part two dimensional. Leonardo mastered the art of sfumato and chiaroscuro.

Sfumato, (from Italian sfumare, “to tone down” or “to evaporate like smoke”), in painting or drawing, the fine shading that produces soft, imperceptible transitions between colours and tones.

Chiaroscuro, (from Italian chiaro, “light,” and scuro, “dark”), technique employed in the visual arts to represent light and shadow as they define three-dimensional objects.

Perhaps his obsession with making things look three-dimensional stemmed from the fact that he is the father of stereoscopy, the science of 3D. He was the first person to figure out that you had to boil a human eyeball in order to dissect it. (Doing these experiments on deceased human beings at the risk of the death penalty for being caught)

From there he figured out that the eye was transposing an image upside down in the brain and only then could the brain understand what it was receiving.   He also calculated that the parallax between one eye and the second eye is what makes three dimensions perceptible.

In simplifying everything to variations of light and shadow, he created the ultimate new sophistication in art.

Happy Saturday🌟

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Written by Brian Weiner
When I was 5 years old, I discovered that the lemon tree in the backyard + dixie cups + water and sugar and I was in business. I have been hooked on that ever since. In 1979, I borrowed $14,000 to create a brand new product... photographic greeting cards with no text on the inside, called Paradise Photography. That was the start of The Illusion Factory. Since then, The Illusion Factory has been entrusted by all of the major studios and broadcasters with the advertising and marketing of over $7 billion in filmed, live, broadcast, gaming, AR, VR and regulated gaming forms of entertainment, generating more than $100 Billion in revenue and 265 awards for creativity and technology for our clients. When I took a break from film school at UCLA to move to Hawaii, my mother did not lecture me. Instead, she took 150 of her favorite aphorisms and in her beautiful calligraphy, wrote them artistically throughout a blank journal. That is the origin of the Lessons from the Mountain series. Since then, on my journeys to the top of a mountain to watch the sunrise, I have spent countless hours contemplating words of wisdom from the sages of all races, genders and political persuasions, constantly accumulating the thoughts to guide me on my life path. I hope you enjoy my books. Please let me know your thoughts, as I highly value your feedback!