On Fabrics or Drapery
The Tenth Chapter
(1) We now have a singular matter to consider,*
Opportune for the well-being of the art of painting,
That is, Fabrics:529 which duly befit the naked body
(As Bread Forms a complement to Wine):
For poverty and shame teach us to cover
The Body, and to attire ourselves with clothes,
Especially here, in cold Northern climes, beneath the Great Bear,
Which hangs ever present over our heads.
(2) The human Body, wondrously beautiful in its creation,*
Transcends in honor every variety of linen,
Worm-spun silk, and garment of Tyrian purple:
So, too, those born and bred in the peaceably disposed Kingdom of Saturn,
Whose soles are planted opposite to ours,
Know no shame, caring nothing for clothes:530**
Nevertheless, reason, here urging an honorable reserve,
Teaches us the just measure of modest clothing.
(3) One’s clothing shall match one’s condition,*
In proportion to a person’s honorable station:
Kings in purple, adorned with Crowns,**
And carefree Youths, rejoicing to prettify themselves,
Will [wear] glittering colors, exquisitely fine,
And white will best pertain to Maidens: to all this,
Painters must pay careful attention,
Placing on view persons clothed according to their condition.
(4) Black, as ever it does, will signify sorrow,
About which I have written in its proper place;531
In this color Widows and older Folks
Are clothed; similarly let it be done
With Herdsmen and Mariners, giving them roughly woven
Varieties of gray woolens,532
Broadly fitted to the body, with heavy folds,
And sparingly trimmed with a few beautiful colors.
(5) All that Arachne’s art produces fully,533*
We must observe attentively and diligently,
Beginning with Stuffs that Weavers roll in the rough
From their beams, and woollens, and other [Stuffs] as well,
Twills, Serges,534 Silks, fashioning each [fabric’s] folds
According to their proper characteristics: so that our Stuffs
Be made in a natural way, whether hanging flat or lying creased,
Rather than [looking like] ropes, cords, or tubes.
(6) Raw Linen, like wet Paper, makes
Angular folds, with sharp corners.535
One amply sees the manner in which*
Dürer’s creased Stuffs lie about:536
But the painting of finely spun cloth,537
Of the sort worn by the Christ child in pictures of the Virgin Mary,**
May best be sought out and found
In [the works of] Mabuse, to speak candidly.538
(7) But in the folding of Fabrics, most worthy of praise,
This deserves scrupulously to be observed:
The outermost garment or mantle of a male or female figure*
Shall be made thicker
Than any item of clothing worn underneath.
Now, I feel and find great pleasure**
in the flowing Stuffs of Lucas van Leyden,
From which the moderns have somewhat departed.539
(8) I advise no one to forbear
From learning how to fashion
Various types of Fabrics after the life, as did Lucas*
Ceaselessly, or so someone who knew him
Attests about this widely admired man;541
Yet Stuffs even more than foliage, hair, or beards**
Are a spirited pursuit, yes one of clever invention,542
Through artful joining, girding, and binding together.
(9) One shall not bind drapery too low*
Around the hips, nor let it hang the wrong way round:
Attend well to how it stretches and dangles,
And how the folds go out and in, slip out of sight, recede,
As their nature inclines them.
Here, too, the seven types of movement,**
Recounted earlier, ought not to be forgotten,
And one should also know where [the fabric] bunches.544
(10) Wherever the body’s limbs*
Fold or bend, that is, in stooping,
At the place where the thighs meet the torso,
As also at the knees, in bending back the shanks,
Or flexing the armpits and arms; at all such [bodily] parts,
Freely fold your Fabrics, pressing them together,
And let them stiffly stretch at the lap,
From knee to knee, when they push wide apart.
(11) Whatever is found roundly to project,*
Be it the shoulders, thighs, knees, belly, calves, or buttocks,
One shall allow to rise and bow round:
Place no folds in that place, for a brightly lit ground
Permits no hard shadows:
But there, just beside, where it’s dark, to bring
A multitude of creases falling and pressing together,
Cannot go amiss: for this, no one shall rebuke you.
(12) Like branches growing from a tree,*
Let the folds sprout, one from the other:546
Avoid pocket-folds, so that bags of cloth**
Be not found after the Stuffs are unpacked,
Stretched out and held taut;
And fashion your folds and ridges so that one may always***
See where they continue and commence,
As may be observed in nature.
(13) Above all, one thing surely requires mentioning:
Namely, that Fabrics not be crumpled*
In a confused and toilsome way,
As if tattered and torn:
Wherein our Forefathers erred very ill-advisedly,
Aldegrever, in particular, who went much astray,**
Creasing [cloth] too copiously,
In a manner characterized as confusing.547
(14) But Dürer’s Stuffs, especially in his late works,*
As one sees from his prints, in which splendid
Fields of flat light appear, everything else
Receding into a multitude of shadows,
Are beautiful and exemplary, as witness his best Marian images.548
It would be a great crime, a dishonorable deed,
To accuse such a man of confusion,
Whose Art, by its very nature, could never brook such aspersion.
(15) The honor of the Batavians and the Germans,
Lucas and Albrecht, upon whom the Choir of Muses poured out*
Their gifts, the Italians
Have from their prints and the respective
Manner of their Fabrics taken much profit and advantage,
Perchance more than anyone’s judgment
Might realize, for they, being cunningly deft,
Have known how to alter [their sources] slightly.549
(16) In Lucas’s stuffs, one finds fine trains.550
In the Magdalene, the Mordechai, and the Evil One
Tempting Christ, can be seen how gracefully he executes
Little folds with the burin:551
Who could thereupon pour out sweetness more flowingly?552
Now, Young Ones, like Bees from Roses,
Suck, to your noteworthy use,
This dripping nectar, and sweet honey.553
(17) Flowing Fabrics, rich, unconfined,*
Fabricate chiefly for the Women, without faltering,
In this you shall not lightly be blamed.
Let [the Fabrics] rather drag across the ground, than be too short,**
And just as little branches ornament trees,
So here give subtle flourishes to the edges and borders,
In how they hang and lie,
But refrain from piercing the ridges with gashes.***
(18) Now, in silks and various lustrous stuffs554*
The Venetians are on the whole greatly prized,
Who know well how to manipulate
Colors, and implement them
In such a way that the highlights clearly stand out:555
But one must needs always insert
Such highlights into changeant silks,
As the adjacent color may best permit.556
(19) So that [these colors] do not undermine each other,557*
As lakes558 duly tolerate light blues,559
And smalts560 tolerate lake whites,561
So light massicot562 sits well beside green,563
Ash-white accedes to be shaded well with yellow lake,564
Purple with blue or red, and the various grayish tints565
Readily give leave to be heightened brightly.
One must experiment with these in every possible way.
(20) The large, flat expanses of fabric [worn by] high-placed Men,*
Sometimes look resplendent.
One occasionally also sees on the cowls of Monks,567
That the folds congregate
Where Stuff over Stuff, slack or taut,
Hangs, the one piece over the other; nor should one exclude
A bit of modern attire, from time to time,
[The sort] now or recently in use.568
(21) What shall I hold out for further inspection:*
Ruffs, collars, lappets, and panels [falling to] the thighs,
To be laced up, cut through, or knotted,
With a quick and ready wit?
Wreaths, cutouts, enlacements, and bows,
Make them all, some tied up, others left open,
Above and beneath [items of] clothing, vests and lace-ups,
Mantles, wimples, and a thousand fine concoctions.
(22) Put to the test, investigate, formulate, sample others’ things,
Seize upon every nook and cranny of invention,569
Modulate, modify, explore various combinations,
With what you’ve been able to bring to a state of well-being.
Set to, and in order to drape finely,
Apply yourself to glazing capably,*
Which enhances, when it comes right, a glowing transparency,
In making velvets and beautiful satins.570
(23) Whereas one is wont wholly to rely on highlights
In projecting the folds forward,
Velvets require quite the reverse procedure:571*
For one makes them for the most part brown,
Distributing uniform highlights only along the reflective surfaces:
But as concerns the color of Satins,
I know no example more liberal
Than life, Mistress of every Painter.
(24) One plainly sees in the works of great Masters
Various manners of Stuffs;
Raphael of Urbino, who did wonderful things in this vein,*
Understood how rightly to fashion folds,
Clothing some of his Figures simply, others richly:572
Likewise Buonarroti in his coloring,
But some of what he carved in stone,
Is less than pleasing, I should say,
(25) Due to the hard folds, which offend
When they come into the light on something prominent,
As they do especially on the lap of Moses.573
But Titian, great, very glorious in fame,*
Whose paintings are everywhere full of life,
Not just in his nudes but also
In his splendid Stuffs skillfully folded,
As can be seen readily in his woodcuts.574
(26) Many other Italians whose handling is fine*
Might I place before you, Reader:
Del Sarto,575 Tintoretto,576 Veronese,577
The two Zuccari,578 and Barocci,579
Who earn the crown for their ridged folds,580
Both in kind and skill: but the beauty of Fabrics,
If they be well pleasing, always consists above all
In beautiful folds, knowledgeably executed.
(27) But I would make no mention of the Ancients,*
For to display their Stuffs as Examples
Is to use them for naught. They must yield
To the moderns, whom they cannot equal,
In that their linens hang wet, like cords,
And their Figures, seen in this light,
Ought to have been draped otherwise.
Such ineptitude has been a cause of surprise to many.581
(28) No Antique Stuffs (if my memory does not
Deceive me) did I see in Rome,
Worthy to serve [as Examples], with the singular exception*
(If my judgment be true) of [several] bronze statues
With fluttering [garments]: these were like Goddesses**
Who for their Drapery might well win the prize
Amongst the Ancients, in the new Palace of the Farnese,
Which I happened to see in an upper gallery.582
(29) In the same Palace, the Flora stands,*
Her sculpted Drapery not at all bad;583
But since I am now advising how to [make clothing] flutter:
When the Figure is in motion indoors,
Or walking forward, all [the drapery] must fly backward:
But if [the Figure] is outdoors, then [the drapery] must partially
Follow the direction whither the wind blows,
Whether forward or backward, hard or gently.584
(30) The Spirit is to be deployed for things such as these:585
A blustery wind should serve to press thin fabrics and silks*
Against the body,
So that the nude figure’s thighs, torso, and legs
(Were it to turn out well) appear subtly true.586
In this, one needs as allies the Charites
Who accompanied the son of Pythius as he set about his work.587**
Our Idea must display its force herein.588***
(31) Already I see [in my mind’s eye] how gracefully
Blow the Nymphs’ clothing and streaming veils,*
For the most part simply, [in one direction,] and every so often
Hither and thither with the wind; and how the
Nimble Bacchantes sway, their torches wreathed in ivy,589
Running up and down steep hillsides,
And Diana’s Maidens hunting in the wild [woods],
Their skirts and veils billowing freely.
(32) Who fails to see the Bull bathing in the Sea,*
And the Maiden’s garments playing like sails [in the wind]?590
Who would scorn to read to us the Exile,**
Rich in conceits? How he paints this young captive’s
Distress? Whom could he displease
By making veils and ribbons, and gold-blonde Hair,
Drift airbound across her Marble throat?
Condignly does our Brush listen to such writing.591
(33) Whatsoever these matters may as yet require,
Let me commend to you the [further] tasks
Of fashioning other forms of Clothing,
Varieties of Embroidery, and Cloth of Gold,*
Also many-colored figured damasks:592
Attend well, mishandle nothing,
In draping amply, elegantly, subtly,
For which purpose the sorting of colors will prove necessary.
End of Stuffs and Drapery.
Footnotes
*
Fabrics, an excellent branch [of Art], expedient to its well-being.
*
The well-created Human body, more beautiful than any clothing.
**
In the Indies, people walk about naked, but shame teaches us here to clothe ourselves.
*
Clothing correspondent to persons.
**
Likewise the colors of clothing, each fitted to [a person’s] nature and age.
*
Various Fabrics, their varied folds and creases to be observed.
*
Example of Dürer’s Stuffs.
**
Example of Mabuse’s little cloths.
*
Coarser fabrics on top, not beneath.540
**
Example of Lucas van Leyden’s stuffs.
*
Various types of Fabrics, after the life.
**
Stuffs have more the nature of spirit than do foliage or hair.543
*
How to bunch and drape fabrics.
**
Movement of folds, out and in.
*
Where the Fabrics must fold and crease.
*
Where the Body and limbs are lit, avoid folds, but leave them flat, in order to avoid harsh illumination.545
*
Folds that mutually arise from something that projects or is raised.
**
Pocket-folds are to be avoided.
***
Where folds end and begin.
*
Avoid a confusion of folds.
**
Example: Aldegrever, who creased too copiously.
*
Example: Albrecht Dürer’s planar Stuffs.
*
Example: Lucas’s and Albrecht’s prints.
*
Flowing Garments of Women.
**
Round the edges subtly [with flourishes].
***
Avoid perforated ridges.
*
Example: Venetian Painters of beautiful little silks and changeant or compound silks.
*
Colors to be investigated for the purpose of painting reflections.566
*
Splendid, wide expanses of Silk, with a flickering fold here and there, look good: so, too, do flat woolens, as on Monk’s cowls, and also modern clothing.
*
Diverse properties of clothing.
*
Make use of glazing.
*
On Velvets and silks.
*
Examples of Italian Stuffs.
*
Titian’s woodcuts as Examples.
*
Further examples of the Italians.
*
There are few if any good Stuffs to be found in Antiquities.
*
Several bronze Female statues in the Palazzo Farnese.
**
Good, fluttering Ancient drapery.
*
Example of the Flora there.
*
Fluttering drapery makes a nude figure stand out.
**
Pythius was the Father of Apelles.
***
Idee: the imagination, or memory.
*
Flying wimples and veils of the Nymphs.
*
Example: Europa, described by Ovid.
**
The Painter’s Brush must listen to the Poet’s pen.
*
Figured Stuffs and Damasks.