Notebooks (29 page)
Authors: Leonardo da Vinci,Irma Anne Richter,Thereza Wells
Tags: #History, #Fiction, #General, #European, #Art, #Renaissance, #Leonardo;, #Leonardo, #da Vinci;, #1452-1519, #Individual artists, #Art Monographs, #Drawing By Individual Artists, #Notebooks; sketchbooks; etc, #Individual Artist, #History - Renaissance, #Renaissance art, #Individual Painters - Renaissance, #Drawing & drawings, #Drawing, #Techniques - Drawing, #Individual Artists - General, #Individual artists; art monographs, #Art & Art Instruction, #Techniques
Weight, force, and the motion of bodies and percussion are the four elemental powers in which all the visible actions of mortals have their being and their end.
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After the demonstration of all the parts of the limbs of men and of the other animals you will represent the proper way of action of these limbs, that is in rising from lying down, in moving, running, and jumping in various attitudes, in lifting and carrying heavy weights, in throwing things to a distance, and in swimming; and in every action you will show which limbs and which muscles perform it, and deal especially with the play of the arms.
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As regards the disposition of the limbs in movement you will have to consider that when you wish to represent a man who for some reason has to turn backwards or to one side you must not make him move his feet and all his limbs towards the side to which he turns his head. Rather must you make the action proceed by degrees and through the different joints, that is those of the foot, the knee, the hips, and the neck. If you set him on the right leg, you must make his left knee bend inwards and his left foot slightly raised on the outside; and let the left shoulder be somewhat lower than the right; and the nape of the neck is in a line directly over the outer ankle of the left foot. And the left shoulder will be in a perpendicular line above the toes of the right foot. And always set your figures so that the side to which the head turns is not the side to which the breast faces, since nature for our convenience has made us with a neck which bends with ease in many directions as the eye turns to various points and the other joints are partly obedient to it.
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On the grace of the limbs
The limbs should be adapted to the body with grace and with reference to the effect that you wish the figure to produce. If you wish to produce a figure that shall look light and graceful in itself you must make the limbs elegant and extended, and without too much display of the muscles; and the few that are needed you must indicate softly, that is, not very prominently and without strong shadows; the limbs and particularly the arms easy, so that they should not be in a straight line with the adjoining parts. If the hips, which are the pole of a man, are placed so that the right is higher than the left, then let the right shoulder be lower than the left and make the joint of the higher shoulder in a perpendicular line above the highest prominence of the hip. Let the pit of the throat always be over the centre of the ankle of that foot on which the man is leaning. The leg which is free should have the knee lower than the other, and near the other leg. The positions of head and arms are infinitely varied and I shall therefore not enlarge on any rules for them. Let them, however, be easy and pleasing, with various turns and twists and the joints gracefully bent, that they may not look like pieces of wood.
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That is called simple movement in a man when he simply bends forward, or backwards, or to the side.
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That is called a compound movement in a man when some purpose required bending down and to the side at the same time. . . .
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Of human movement
When you wish to represent a man in the act of moving some weight reflect that these movements are to be represented in different directions. A man may stoop to lift a weight with the intention of lifting it as he straightens himself; this is a simple movement from below upwards; or he may wish to pull something backward, or push it forward or draw it down with a rope that passes over a pulley. Here you should remember that a man’s weight drags in proportion as the centre of his gravity is distant from that of his support, and you must add to this the force exerted by his legs and bent spine as he straightens himself.
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The sinew which guides the leg, and which is connected with the patella of the knee, feels it a greater labour to carry the man upwards in proportion as the leg is more bent; the muscle which acts upon the angle made by the thigh where it joins the body has less difficulty and less weight to lift, because it has not the weight of the thigh itself. And besides this its muscles are stronger being those which form the buttock.
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The first thing that the man does when he ascends by steps is to free the leg which he wishes to raise from the weight of the trunk which is resting upon this leg, and at the same time he loads the other leg with his entire weight including that of the raised leg. Then he raises the leg and places the foot on the step where he wishes to mount; having done this he conveys to the higher foot all the weight of the trunk and of the leg and leaning his hand upon his thigh, thrusts the head forward and moves towards the point of the higher foot, while raising swiftly the heel of the lower foot; and with the impetus thus acquired he raises himself up; and at the same time by extending the arm which was resting upon his knee he pushes the trunk and head upwards and thus straightens the curve of his back.
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Man and every animal undergoes more fatigue in going upwards than downwards, for as he ascends he bears his weight with him and as he descends he simply lets it go.
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A man, in running, throws less of his weight on his legs than when he is standing still. In like manner the horse, when running, is less conscious of the weight of the man whom it is carrying; consequently many consider it marvellous that a horse in a race can support itself on one foot only. Therefore we may say regarding weight in transverse movement that the swifter the movement, the less the weight towards the centre of the earth.
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How a man proceeds to raise himself to his feet when he is sitting on level ground.
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It is impossible that any memory can hold all the aspects and mutations of any limb of any animal. We shall demonstrate this by taking the hand for an example. Since every continuous quantity is divisible
in infinitum
the movement of the eye, which observes the hand, travels through a space, which is also a continuous quantity and there divisible
in infinitum
. And in every stage of the movement the aspect and shape of the hand varies when it is seen, and will continue to vary as the eye moves in a complete circle. And the hand in turn will act in a similar way as it is raised in its movement, that is to say it will travel through space which is a continuous quantity.
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in infinitum
the movement of the eye, which observes the hand, travels through a space, which is also a continuous quantity and there divisible
in infinitum
. And in every stage of the movement the aspect and shape of the hand varies when it is seen, and will continue to vary as the eye moves in a complete circle. And the hand in turn will act in a similar way as it is raised in its movement, that is to say it will travel through space which is a continuous quantity.
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There are [four] principal simple movements in the flexion performed by the joint of the shoulder, namely when the arm attached to the same moves upward or downwards or forward or backward. One might say, though, that such movements are infinite. For if we turn our shoulder towards a wall and describe a circular figure with our arm we shall have performed all the movements contained in the said shoulder. And, since [every circle is] a continuous quantity, the movement of the arm [has produced] a continuous quantity. This movement would not produce a continuous quantity were it not guided by the principle of continuation. Therefore, the movement of that arm has been through all the parts of the circle. And as the circle is divisible
in infinitum
the variations of the shoulder have been infinite.
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in infinitum
the variations of the shoulder have been infinite.
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One and the same action seen from various places
One and the same attitude is shown in an infinite number of variations, because it can be viewed from an infinite number of places and these places are of a continuous quantity, and a continuous quantity is divisible into an infinite number of parts. Consequently every human action shows itself in an infinite variety of situations.
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The movements of man performed on one single occasion or for one single purpose are infinitely varied in themselves. This can be proved thus. Let us assume that a man strikes some object. Then I say that his stroke is made up of two states. Either he is lifting the thing which must descend in order to bring about the stroke, or this thing is already descending. Whichever may be the case, it is undeniable that the movement occurs in space and that space is a continuous quantity, and that every continuous quantity is divisible
in infinitum
. The conclusion is that every movement of the thing which descends is variable
in infinitum
.
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(in infinitum
. The conclusion is that every movement of the thing which descends is variable
in infinitum
.
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c
) Physiology
Where there is life there is heat; where there is heat there is movement of the watery humours.
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The cause which moves the water through its springs against the natural course of its gravity is like that which moves the humours in all the shapes of animated bodies.
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[
With a drawing of the heart showing veins and arteries.
]
With a drawing of the heart showing veins and arteries.
]
O writer, with what words will you describe with a like perfection the whole arrangement of that of which the drawing is here? For lack of knowledge you will describe it confusedly so as to convey but little perception of the true shapes of things; and deceiving yourself you believe that you can satisfy the listener completely when you speak of the figure of anything that has body and is surrounded by surfaces.
I recommend that you do not cumber yourself with words unless you are speaking to the blind, or if you wish to demonstrate to the ears with words rather than to the eyes of men speak of things of substance or of nature and do not busy yourself in making enter by the ears things which have to do with the eyes for in this you will be far surpassed by the work of the painter.
With what words can you describe this heart without filling a whole book? Yet the more detail you write concerning it the more you will confuse the mind of the hearer. And you will always need commentators or to go back to experience, and this with you is very brief and only deals with a few things as compared with the extent of the subject concerning which you desire complete knowledge.
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Of the human eye
The pupil of the eye changes to as many different sizes as there are differences in the degrees of brightness and obscurity of the objects which present themselves before it. . . . In this case nature has provided the visual faculty, when irritated by excessive light, with the contraction of the pupil and here nature works like one who, having too much light in his habitation, blocks up the window more or less according to necessity, and who, when night comes, throws open the whole of this window in order to see better. . . .
Nature is here providing for perpetual adjustment and continual equilibrium by dilation and contraction of the pupil according to the obscurity or brightness which presents itself before it. You can observe the process in nocturnal animals such as cats, screech owls, long-eared owls, which have the pupil small at midday and very large at night . . . and if you wish to make the experiment with a man look intently at the pupil of his eye while holding a lit candle at a short distance away and make him look at this light as you bring it gradually nearer, and you will see that the nearer the light approaches to his pupil the more it will contract.
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The pupil is situated in the centre of the cornea [
luce
] which is of the shape of a part of a sphere which takes the pupil at the centre of its base. This
luce
forming part of a sphere takes all the images of the objects and transmits them through the pupil within to the place where the vision is formed.
luce
] which is of the shape of a part of a sphere which takes the pupil at the centre of its base. This
luce
forming part of a sphere takes all the images of the objects and transmits them through the pupil within to the place where the vision is formed.
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