How Nature Hides the Bones; Skin, Fat, and Aging
Tight clothing braces slack skin; leanness weakens the muscles; nature conceals the bones of the young.
This page of the Treatise on Painting explains that someone whose skin lacks tautness binds his clothes tightly so the swelling muscles have something to press against, whereas fat men who grow lean weaken as their deflated, wrinkled skin gives the muscles nothing to lean on. A moderate, undiminished fatness keeps the skin tight and the surface smooth. A new chapter argues that nature conceals the bones as far as each limb's function allows, most fully in youth when the skin is stretched taut, while with age the muscles thin and the covering skin grows loose and wrinkled.
On this page
Tight clothing braces slack skin over the muscles
Someone whose skin lacks proper tautness helps himself by binding his clothes tightly, so the condensing muscles have somewhere to press and lean. When fat men grow lean, the deflated, wrinkled skin gives the muscles nothing to lean on, and they lose power; a moderate fatness keeps the skin drawn tight and the surface smooth.
Nature hides the bones as far as a limb allows
Chapter [339] holds that nature conceals the bones in animals as much as the need of each limb permits, more in one body than another, and most fully in the flower of youth when the skin is stretched as tight as it can go.
How the skin wrinkles and slackens with age
As the limbs work, the skin grows over the bends of the joints and wrinkles when the limbs straighten again; then with advancing age the muscles thin and the covering skin grows and begins to fill out loosely.