Learning by Heart; The Painter Must Be Universal
Tracing on glass or oiled parchment to correct errors; why mastering one head or figure does not make a master
Two chapters of practical instruction fill this folio. 'A Way to Learn Well by Heart' teaches the student to draw a subject until it is memorized, then attempt it from memory and check the result against the model traced on thin flat glass, or, lacking glass, on oiled and dried kid parchment that a sponge can wipe clean for reuse, marking and correcting every place where the outlines fail to meet. The second chapter, 'That the Painter Is Not Praiseworthy Unless He Is Universal,' rejects the notion that a man who paints only one head or figure well is a good master, insisting that painting embraces everything nature produces and all the eye can grasp. The list of nature's variety runs on to the next folio.
On this page
Checking a drawing against a tracing on glass
Once a subject has been drawn so often it seems learned by heart, one should draw it without the model, then lay over it the model traced on thin flat glass and note where the tracing does not meet the drawing. Each erring part is redrawn from the model until it is well fixed in the imagination.
Oiled parchment as a reusable tracing sheet
If flat glass cannot be had for tracing, Leonardo advises a very thin sheet of kid parchment, well oiled and then dried. After it has served for one drawing it can be erased with a sponge and used again for a second.
One head or figure does not make a master
Those who call a painter a good master merely for making one head or figure well deceive themselves; it is no great feat to reach some perfection in a single thing studied a whole lifetime. A poor master, he says, is one who does only one figure well.
Painting embraces all that nature produces
Painting embraces and contains within itself all the things nature produces, all that the accidental action of men brings about, and whatever the eyes can grasp. He points to the countless actions of men and the diversity of animals, trees, herbs and flowers, the enumeration continuing onto the next folio.