The Nature of the Human Body
Before dressing them, we first draw them nude
As a young painter in Florence, Leonardo studied human anatomy primarily to improve his art. His forerunner as an artist-engineer, Leon Battista Alberti, had written that anatomical study was essential for an artist because properly depicting people and animals requires beginning with an understanding of their insides. “Isolate each bone of the animal, on this add its muscles, then clothe all of it with its flesh,” he wrote in On Painting, which became a bible for Leonardo. “Before dressing a man we first draw him nude, then we enfold him in draperies. So in painting the nude, we place first his bones and muscles which we then cover with flesh so that it is not difficult to understand where each muscle is beneath.”
Leonardo embraced the advice with an enthusiasm that any other artist, or for that matter most anatomists, would have found unimaginable. And in his notebooks he preached the same sermon: “It is necessary for a painter to be a good anatomist, so that he may be able to design the naked parts of the human frame and know the anatomy of the sinews, nerves, bones, and muscles.” Following another part of Alberti’s creed, Leonardo wanted to know how psychological emotions led to physical motions. As a result, he would also become interested in the way the nervous system works and how…
