[Footnote:  The sketches introduced here are a facsimile of a pen and ink drawing in the Louvre which Herr CARL BRUN considers as studies for the Last Supper in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie (see Leonardo da Vinci, LXI, pp. 21, 27 and 28 in DOHME’S Kunst und Kunstler, Leipzig, Seemann).  I shall not here enter into any discussion of this suggestion; but as a justification for introducing the drawing in this place, I may point out that some of the figures illustrate this passage as perfectly as though they had been drawn for that express purpose.  I have discussed the probability of a connection between this sketch and the picture of the Last Supper on p. 335.  The original drawing is 27 3/4 centimetres wide by 21 high.—­The drawing in silver point on reddish paper given on Pl.  LII.  No. 1—­the original at Windsor Castle—­may also serve to illustrate the subject of appropriate gestures, treated in Nos. 593 and 594.]

595.

OF THE DISPOSITION OF LIMBS.

As regards the disposition of limbs in movement you will have to consider that when you wish to represent a man who, by some chance, has to turn backwards or to one side, you must not make him move his feet and all his limbs towards the side to which he turns his head.  Rather must you make the action proceed by degrees and through the different joints; that is, those of the foot, the knee and the hip and the neck.  And if you set him on the right leg, you must make the left knee bend inwards, and let his foot be slightly raised on the outside, and the left shoulder be somewhat lower than the right, while the nape of the neck is in a line directly over the outer ancle of the left foot.  And the left shoulder will be in a perpendicular line above the toes of the right foot.  And always set your figures so that the side to which the head turns is not the side to which the breast faces, since nature for our convenience has made us with a neck which bends with ease in many directions, the eye wishing to turn to various points, the different joints.  And if at any time you make a man sitting with his arms at work on something which is sideways to him, make the upper part of his body turn upon the hips.

[Footnote:  Compare Pl.  VII, No. 5.  The original drawing at Windsor Castle is numbered 104.]

596.

When you draw the nude always sketch the whole figure and then finish those limbs which seem to you the best, but make them act with the other limbs; otherwise you will get a habit of never putting the limbs well together on the body.

Never make the head turn the same way as the torso, nor the arm and leg move together on the same side.  And if the face is turned to the right shoulder, make all the parts lower on the left side than on the right; and when you turn the body with the breast outwards, if the head turns to the left side make the parts on the right side higher than those on the left.