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.
392.
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
dresses, as many do, from models covered with paper or thin leather
which will deceive you greatly.
[Footnote: The little pen and ink drawing from Windsor (W. 102),
given on Pl. XXVIII, No. 7, clearly illustrates the statement made
at the beginning of this passage; the writing of the cipher 19 on
the same page is in Leonardo's hand; the cipher 21 is certainly
not.]
_VIII._
_Botany for Painters and Elements of Landscape Painting._
_The chapters composing this portion of the work consist of
observations on Form, Light and Shade in Plants, and particularly in
Trees summed up in certain general rules by which the author intends
to guide the artist in the pictorial representation of landscape._
_With these the first principles of a_ Theory of Landscape painting
_are laid down--a theory as profoundly thought out in its main
lines as it is lucidly worked out in its details. In reading these
chapters the conviction is irresistible that such a_ Botany for
painters _is or ought to be of similar importance in the practice of
painting as the principles of the Proportions and Movements of the
human figure_ i. e. Anatomy for painters.
_There can be no doubt that Leonardo, in laying down these rules,
did not intend to write on Botany in the proper scientific
sense--his own researches on that subject have no place here; it
need only be observed that they are easily distinguished by their
character and contents from those which are here collected and
arranged under the title 'Botany for painters'. In some cases where
this division might appear doubtful,--as for instance in No._
402--_the Painter is directly addressed and enjoined to take the
rule to heart as of special importance in his art._
_The original materials are principally derived from MS._ G, _in
which we often find this subject treated on several pages in
succession without any of that intermixture of other matters, which
is so frequent in Leonardo's writings. This MS., too, is one of the
latest; when it was written, the great painter was already more than
sixty years of age, so we can scarcely doubt that he regarded all he
wrote as his final views on the subject. And the same remark applies
to the chapters from MSS._ E _and_ M _which were also written
between_ 1513--15.
_For the sake of clearness, however, it has been desirable to
sacrifice--with few exceptions--the original order of the passages
as written, though it was with much reluctance and only after long
hesitation that I resigned myself to this necessity. Nor do I mean
to impugn the logical connection of the author's ideas in his MS.;
but it will be easily understood that the sequence of disconnected
notes, as they occurred to Leonardo and were written down from time
to time, might be hardly satisfactory as a systematic arrangement of
his principles. The reader will find in the Appendix an exact
account of the order of the chapters in the original MS. and from
the data there given can restore them at will. As the materials are
here arranged, the structure of the tree as regards the growth of
the branches comes first_ (394-411) _and then the insertion of the
leaves on the stems_ (412-419). _Then follow the laws of Light and
Shade as applied, first, to the leaves (420-434), and, secondly, to
the whole tree and to groups of trees_ (435-457). _After the remarks
on the Light and Shade in landscapes generally_ (458-464), _we find
special observations on that of views of towns and buildings_
(465-469). _To the theory of Landscape Painting belong also the
passages on the effect of Wind on Trees_ (470-473) _and on the Light
and Shade of Clouds_ (474-477), _since we find in these certain
comparisons with the effect of Light and Shade on Trees_ (e. g.: _in
No._ 476, 4. 5; _and No._ 477, 9. 12). _The chapters given in the
Appendix Nos._ 478 _and_ 481 _have hardly any connection with the
subjects previously treated._
Classification of trees.
393.