FIFTH PART

The practice of making every kind of birds in a very easy manner.

Now being in my fifth part, I believe to sufficiently address the Youth who wish to exercise and learn design, concerning the true Geometry practice to create all kinds of Animals: I have not found a way to teach with a light manner to make birds, which have a routine; for what is created in the world has a certain proportion in itself; birds are greatly diverse in form, more than four-legged animals; but for this reason, we only wish to speak of a regulation, how in various ways and proportions, namely, the Eagle, Owl, Swan, and Stork, the common Rooster and the Indian Rooster, according to this proportion we will understand the rest.

First Problem.

Having through long experience of study, noticed in nature, that there is nothing which God has created in the world, which does not have some sympathy with Euclid's figures, and even in my youth, I have seen that one teaches in Schools that nature teaches to make a Bird: For still in School, I noticed my Comrades used to scribble on paper and created by imagination the figure of a bird, which I present here for my first Problem, and it is also the true maxim of making with a right proportion a bird. Like the figure marked by A, which is a round, to which I add B, which is oval, what I add in parallelogram C, which is the tail under which I place two lines as supports on which the Body rests, and which I usually place on the grosser part of the Body, to support this half of the Body. There is the first part of this figure, or to form a large part of birds, like Eagles, Vultures, Goldfinches, Parrots, & Starlings.

Second Problem.

Another kind of observation of long-necked birds.

In my second rule, the proportions of Birds, such as Stork, Pelican, Ostrich, & all those with long beaks & necks, are done in the same manner, as showing the tail & the neck, given the instruction in the figure D, E, F, G.

Third Problem.

Which will treat of Swans & Ducks, Geese, & fish-eaters,
& other similar kinds of birds.

The Swan among all Birds is one of the most dignified, and it offers in the drawing and painting a very beautiful grace, especially when it floats on the water, and also forms with an elongated oval and for the neck, an oblique or form of a capital S, and is formed in the same figure as ours with the letters H, I, K, L, M. Ducks & all fat birds, & also the Peacock with the dreadful long tail, & very-high; but when in its gravity it positions itself in a sketch by a Circle, where the Peacock divides its body into two parts, touching the rest, & has the proportion of all other birds: the Turkey has a slightly different form since it is fatter, & the tail is like a parallelogram.

Fourth Problem.

Roosters, Hens & partridges are generally sketched in a large oval, as I show by the oval marked N, & I add the neck & feet like exemplify O, P, & Q. The rest is done by routine.

Fifth Problem.

On shortening of birds.

I did not want to indulge in long speeches: for he who understands the shortening of Animals will also understand the shortening of birds; but to ease the matter, I showed the way vividly on the table, where there are three main examples to shorten all kinds of birds, whether sitting & on the ground, or branches of trees, or flying, which things will give enough intelligence to shorten all the others.

Special instruction to make all kinds of birds naturally in all ways.

Having experimented & concerted with gallant personages, because all birds being prizes are too lively to draw or paint well; I have seen Sr. Scholten having made his sketch of the drum & or his panel, he had filled the windows having only one day, placed dead birds on a block, & the pose as he wanted to paint or design them, gave great ease; for there is nothing like nature itself, & what he couldn’t have alive, he laid with cords & others as he wanted to have it, being almost impossible to make animals from his mind, for the gestures, & the inventor must consider all the acts of the animals, & the rest expands by routine.