HKB
And thou, O painter, seek to bring about that thy works may attract those who gaze upon them and arrest them with great admiration and delight; and so that they may not attract and forthwith repel them, as the air does to him who in the night season leaps naked from his bed to gaze upon the cloudy and serene sky and forthwith is driven back by the cold, and returns to the bed whence he rose. But let thy works be like the air which draws men from their beds in the hot season, and retains them to taste with delight the cool of the summer; and he who will do well by his art will not strive to be more skilful than learned, nor let greed get the better of glory. Seest thou not among human beauties that it is the beautiful faces which stop the passers-by, and not the richness of their ornaments? And this I say to thee who adornest thy figures with gold and other rich ornaments: Seest thou not splendid, youthful beauties, who diminish their excellence by the excess and elaboration of their {104} ornaments? Hast thou not seen women of the mountains dressed in rough and poor clothes richer in beauty than those who are adorned? Make no use of the affected arrangements and headdresses such as those adopted by loutish maids, who, by placing one lock of hair more on one side than the other, credit themselves with having committed a great enormity, and think that the bystanders will forget their own thoughts to talk of them alone, and to blame them. For such persons have always the looking-glass and the comb, and the wind, which ruffles elaborate headdresses, is their worst enemy. In thy heads let the hair sport with the wind thou depictest around youthful countenances, and adorn them gracefully with various turns, and do not as those who plaster their faces with gum and make the faces seem as if they were of glass. This is a human folly which is always on the increase, and the mariners do not satisfy it who bring arabic gums from the East, so as to prevent the smoothness of the hair from being ruffled by the wind,--but they pursue their investigations still further in this direction.
I cannot but mention among these precepts a new means of study, which, although it may seem trivial and almost ridiculous, is nevertheless extremely useful in arousing the mind to {105} various inventions. It is as follows: when you look at walls mottled with various stains or stones made of diverse substances, if you have to invent some scene, you may discover on them the likeness of various countries, adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, great valleys and hills in diverse arrangement; again, you may be able to see battles and figures in action and strange effects of physiognomy and costumes, and infinite objects which you could reduce to complete and harmonious forms. And the effect produced by these mottled walls is like that of the sound of bells, in the vibrating of which you may recognize any name or word you choose to imagine. I have seen blots in the clouds and in mottled walls which have stimulated me to the invention of various objects, and although the blots themselves were altogether devoid of perfection in any one of their parts, they lacked not perfection in their movement and circumstance.
Obtain knowledge first, and then proceed to practice, which is born of knowledge.
[Sidenote: Theory and Practice]
Knowledge is the captain, and practice the soldiers.
The painter who draws by practice and by the {106} eye, without the guide of reason, is like the mirror, which reflects all the objects which are placed before it and knows not that they exist.