Why the Painter Must Know Anatomy
Skin sags with age as nerves are stripped; a painter must know nerves, bones, muscles, and sinews.
This page first finishes the account of aging: humours gather between skin and muscle, the branching nerves lose their muscular covering and are ill-nourished, and the loose skin forms baggy folds and wrinkles. A key chapter then argues that the painter must know the anatomy of nerves, bones, muscles and sinews in order to compose the nude's attitudes and to thicken only the muscles responsible for a given movement, avoiding the wooden, graceless nudes that look like a sack of nuts or a bundle of radishes. A final chapter begins ranking the muscles by how much they vary in stretching and contracting, starting with the muscle at the back of the thigh.
On this page
Aging skin sags as nerves are stripped of muscle
Humours gather between skin and muscle, and the branching nerves that give the skin feeling lose the muscle that covered them and are poorly nourished. Weighed down by the skin and swollen with humour, the members lengthen, pull away from muscle and bone, and form baggy folds and wrinkles.
The painter must know anatomy
Chapter [340] argues the painter must know the anatomy of nerves, bones, muscles and sinews to compose the nude's attitudes and to make evident and thickened only the muscles causing a given movement. Those who bulge every muscle to seem great draughtsmen produce wooden, graceless nudes that look like a sack of nuts or a bundle of radishes.
Which muscles vary most in stretching and contracting
Chapter [341] ranks the muscles by how much they change in extension and contraction: first the muscle of the back of the thigh, then the one forming the buttock, then that of the back, then the fourth (continued on the next page).