On Counterpoise of the Figure
¶ 88. “Do not have the head turned the way the breast is, nor the arm the way the leg is; and if the head is turned over the right shoulder make the parts lower on the left than on the right” [and vice versa].
At first blush this stylistic counsel flatly contradicts Leonardo’s principle that poses and emotions should express state of mind, but as a matter of fact many expressive movements obey this law of counterpoise or active equilibrium. Leonardo himself generally finds motives for such poses. Such successors as Raphael and Andrea del Sarto habitually used such poses without other excuse than that of their own inherent gracefulness.
On Freedom in Making a Composition
¶ 189. “Have you never considered the poets composing their verses? They take no trouble to make fine letters, nor do they mind cancelling some of the verses and making them better. Do you, then, painter, make the limbs of your figures roughly and attend first to the movements appropriate to the mental state of the beings composing your story, rather than to the beauty and rightness of their members, because you must understand that if such a composition in the rough will meet the needs of the invention, it will please all the more after it has been adorned with the perfection appropriate to all its parts. I have seen in the clouds and spots on the wall what has aroused me to fine inventions of various things, since these spots though entirely without perfection in any part, did not lack perfection in their movements and other actions.”
Painting the Grandchild of Nature
¶ 12. “If you shall despise painting, which is the only imitator of all the apparent works of nature, assuredly you will despise also that careful investigation which with philosophical and careful speculation considers all the qualities of forms: the sea, place, plants, animals, herbage, flowers, which are enveloped in light and shade. And truly this speculation is science and the legitimate child of Nature, since painting is born of this nature. But, to speak more correctly, we will say grandchild of nature, since all apparent things are born of Nature, of which things painting is born. Hence rightly we shall call it the grandchild of this nature and the kinsman of God.”
That the Painter Should be Solitary
¶ 50. “The painter, or rather designer, should be solitary, and especially when he is intent on speculations and considerations which continually appearing before the eyes give matter to be well kept in memory. And if you are alone, you will be entirely yours. And if you shall be accompanied by a single companion you will be half yours, and so much the less as the indiscretion of your companionship shall be the greater ... And if you would say ‘I will do in my fashion, I will hold myself apart’ ... one cannot serve two masters. You will fulfil badly the duty of a companion, and worse the aim of reasoning on the art ... And if you say ‘I will withdraw myself entirely,’ ... I tell you you will be held a madman, but, lo, thus doing you will at least be alone.”
Here Leonardo takes sharpest issue with the easy-going sociable methods which for generations had held in the painter’s bottega, and shows himself an individualist of modern type.