Mental Motions: How the Mind Moves the Body and the Eye
Trattato della pittura: the mental motion, motion arising from an object, common motions, and bipedal gait
A text page of the Treatise on Painting on the movements that spring from the mind. It teaches that a purely mental act moves the body only with simple, quiet gestures, while a motion prompted by an external object first turns the eye and then the hips, thighs and knees toward it, the feet staying put. Two short chapters add that human movements are as various as the accidents passing through the mind, differing with a person's strength and age, and that a biped in walking sinks the side over the rising foot while its upper part does the reverse. The sheet is text only, with no drawings.
On this page
The mental act moves the body only with simple, quiet gestures
A mental motion moves the body with simple and easy acts, not this way nor that, because its object lies in the mind. The mind does not stir the senses while it is occupied within itself.
Motion prompted by an object: the eye turns first, then the limbs
When a man's motion is caused by an object arising at once, he first turns toward it the most necessary sense, the eye, leaving the feet in place. He moves only the thighs together with the hips and knees toward the part whither the eye flies.
A biped's gait: the side over the rising foot sinks
Every two-footed animal, in its motion, lowers the part over the foot that rises more than the part over the foot resting on the ground, while its uppermost part does the contrary. This, the chapter notes, is seen in the hips.