The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci Complete


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How to acquire practice.  
4
90.  
OF STUDY AND THE ORDER OF STUDY.  
I say that first you ought to learn the limbs and their mechanism,  
and having this knowledge, their actions should come next, according  
to the circumstances in which they occur in man. And thirdly to  
compose subjects, the studies for which should be taken from natural  
actions and made from time to time, as circumstances allow; and pay  
attention to them in the streets and piazze and fields, and note  
them down with a brief indication of the forms; [Footnote 5: Lines  
5
-7 explained by the lower portion of the sketch No. 1 on Pl. XXXI.]  
thus for a head make an o, and for an arm a straight or a bent line,  
and the same for the legs and the body, [Footnote 7: Lines 5-7  
explained by the lower portion of the sketch No. 1 on Pl. XXXI.] and  
when you return home work out these notes in a complete form. The  
Adversary says that to acquire practice and do a great deal of work  
it is better that the first period of study should be employed in  
drawing various compositions done on paper or on walls by divers  
masters, and that in this way practice is rapidly gained, and good  
methods; to which I reply that the method will be good, if it is  
based on works of good composition and by skilled masters. But since  
such masters are so rare that there are but few of them to be found,  
348  


Page
346 347 348 349 350

Quick Jump
1 306 613 919 1225