The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci Complete


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OF SMALL FOLDS IN DRAPERIES.  
How figures dressed in a cloak should not show the shape so much as  
that the cloak looks as if it were next the flesh; since you surely  
cannot wish the cloak to be next the flesh, for you must suppose  
that between the flesh and the cloak there are other garments which  
prevent the forms of the limbs appearing distinctly through the  
cloak. And those limbs which you allow to be seen you must make  
thicker so that the other garments may appear to be under the cloak.  
But only give something of the true thickness of the limbs to a  
nymph [Footnote 9: Una nifa. Compare the beautiful drawing of a  
Nymph, in black chalk from the Windsor collection, Pl. XXVI.] or an  
angel, which are represented in thin draperies, pressed and clinging  
to the limbs of the figures by the action of the wind.  
3
92.  
You ought not to give to drapery a great confusion of many folds,  
but rather only introduce them where they are held by the hands or  
the arms; the rest you may let fall simply where it is its nature to  
flow; and do not let the nude forms be broken by too many details  
and interrupted folds. How draperies should be drawn from nature:  
that is to say if youwant to represent woollen cloth draw the folds  
from that; and if it is to be silk, or fine cloth or coarse, or of  
linen or of crape, vary the folds in each and do not represent  
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281 282 283 284 285

Quick Jump
1 306 613 919 1225