Usefulness of Human Studies.

To conceal from others and deceive the common people's eye by presenting well-made images, which without any disguise were tested against the naked truth, held the greatest honor among art connoisseurs and scholars of human studies. Consequently, they could best endure all other works of these and following times.

Above all, what is said is misunderstood if one believes that merely drawing frequently from life (even as we perceive) can lead to the depicted level of true human studies. For when you appear unprepared, many things in life are unseen unless your eyes have been particularly opened by specific preparations. Or if one sees but does not grasp what's relevant, they start without understanding or certainty. Often they stagnate in discerning the incorrect with their utmost ability and present a strongly working or entirely non-working stand because they do not know what everything means beforehand, despite some things appearing ambiguous. One must know the shape and trace of the muscles, even if only half-seen; where a muscle begins, where it ends, or intersects with its tail or tendon under another.

Indeed, Leonardo da Vinci was not entirely wrong when he said that those who paint nude figures without the profound experience of human studies only render the outer skin of the figures, but nothing of the figures themselves, nor anything that relates to their true form.

Translation Notes:
"Menschkunde" has been translated as "human studies" or "figure studies." "Teyckenen" has been translated as "drawing."