Placing Figures by Distance; the Balance of a Figure on One Foot
How a nude's weight-bearing side shifts while the navel keeps its height, as in a b c
This page of the Treatise on Painting continues the counsel to preserve rather than erase one's notebook sketches, since the infinite forms of things exceed memory and should be kept as authorities and masters. A short chapter on placing the first figure in a narrative scene tells the painter to make it as much smaller than life as the number of braccia it stands from the front line, then to scale the rest by comparison. The main section, 'On placing the figures', analyses the balance of a nude standing on one foot: as the weight-bearing side d a shortens, the opposite side lengthens, while the navel and virile member keep their height; the shoulders rise out of the body's perpendicular, which twists over the supporting foot, so the transverse lines drop on the loaded side, as shown in a b c. A pen diagram of a standing figure with a plumb line accompanies the text.
On this page
Scale the first figure by its distance in braccia
The first figure in a narrative is made as much smaller than life as the number of braccia it is set back from the front line, and all the others are then scaled in comparison with it by that rule.
Contrapposto: the weight-bearing side d a contracts
As the side d a of the nude contracts through the pose, the opposite side grows by the same measure, yet the navel and the virile member never leave their height. The whole shift arises because the foot the figure rests on becomes the centre of the weight above it.
Shoulders twist off the plumb line over the foot
The mid-line of the shoulders rises out of the body's perpendicular, which passes through the surface midpoints and twists at its top over the supporting foot; the transverse body lines, held to equal angles, drop lower on the loaded side, as appears in a b c.