The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci Complete


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OF GRACE IN 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. And if  
you wish to produce a figure that shall of itself look light and  
graceful you must make the limbs elegant and extended, and without  
too much display of the muscles; and those few that are needed for  
your purpose you must indicate softly, that is, not very prominent  
and without strong shadows; the limbs, and particularly the arms  
easy; that is, none of the limbs should be in a straight line with  
the adjoining parts. And if the hips, which are the pole of a man,  
are by reason of his position, placed so, that the right is higher  
than the left, make the point of the higher shoulder in a  
perpendicular line above the highest prominence of the hip, and let  
this right shoulder be lower than the left. Let the pit of the  
throat always be over the centre of the joint of the 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 the head  
and arms are endless and I shall therefore not enlarge on any rules  
for them. Still, let them be easy and pleasing, with various turns  
and twists, and the joints gracefully bent, that they may not look  
like pieces of wood.  
Of appropriate gestures (593-600).  
5
93.  
418  


Page
416 417 418 419 420

Quick Jump
1 306 613 919 1225