579

General suggestions for historical pictures.

PRECEPTS IN PAINTING.

Let you sketches of historical pictures be swift and the working out of the limbs not be carried too far, but limited to the position of the limbs, which you can afterwards finish as you please and at your leisure.

[Footnote: See Pl. XXXVIII, No. 2. The pen and ink drawing given there as No. 3 may also be compared with this passage. It is in the Windsor collection where it is numbered 101.]

Taken from The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci edited by Jean Paul Richter, 1880.

Notebooks of Leonoardo da Vinci

VIII: Botany for Painters and Elements of Landscape Painting.

. . .

The juxtaposition of light and shade.

560,

On the lighting of the background.

562,

563,

564,

On the lighting of white objects.

The methods of aerial.

567,

568,

569,

Of sketching figures and portraits.

571,

The position of the head.

Of the light on the face.

574,

575,

General suggestions for historical pictures.

577,

578,

579,

580,

How to represent the differences of age and sex.

582,

Of representing the emotions.

Of representing imaginary animals.

The selection of forms.

586,

587,

588,

589,

590,

How to pose figures.

Of appropriate gestures.

593,

594,

595,

596,

597,

598,

. . .