By means of the mill you will make many water conduits through the house, and springs in various places, and a certain passage where, when anyone passes, from all sides below the water will leap up, and so it will be there ready in case anyone should wish to give a shower bath from below to the women or others who shall pass there.
Overhead we must construct a very fine net of copper which will cover over the garden and shut in beneath it many different kinds of birds. So you will have perpetual music together with the scents of the blossoms of the citrons and the lemons.
With the help of the mill I will make continuous sounds from all sorts of instruments, for so long as the mill shall continue to move.228
IV. THE ARTIST’S LIFE
The painter strives and competes with nature.229
The painter ought to be solitary and consider what he sees, discussing it with himself in order to select the most excellent parts of whatever he sees. He should act as a mirror which transmutes itself into as many colours as are those of the objects that are placed before it. Thus he will seem to be a second nature.230
The life of the painter in his studio
In order that the well-being of the body may not sap that of the mind the painter or draughtsman ought to remain solitary, and especially when intent on those studies and reflections of things which continually appear before his eyes and furnish material to be well kept in the memory. While you are alone you are entirely your own; and if you have but one companion you are but half your own, or even less in proportion to the indiscretion of his conduct. And if you have more companions you will fall deeper into the same trouble. If you should say, ‘I will go my own way, I will withdraw apart the better to study the forms of natural objects’, I tell you that this will work badly because you cannot help often lending an ear to their chatter; and not being able to serve two masters you will badly fill the part of a companion, and carry out your studies of art even worse. And if you say, ‘I will withdraw so far that their words shall not reach me nor disturb me’, I can tell you that you will be thought mad; but bear in mind that by doing this you will at least be alone; and if you must have companionship find it in your study. . . . This may assist you to obtain advantages which result from different methods. All other company may be very mischievous to you.231
Small rooms or dwellings discipline the mind, large ones distract it.232
Denial of the assertion that painters should
not work on feast days
For painting is the way to learn to know the maker of all marvellous things—and this is the way to love so great an inventor. For in truth great love springs from the full knowledge of the thing that one loves; and if you do not know it you can love it but little or not at all.
And if you love Him for the sake of the good benefits that you expect to obtain from Him, you are like the dog wagging its tail, welcoming and jumping up at the man who may give him a bone. But if the dog knew and would be capable of understanding the virtue of this man how much greater would be his love!233
The life of the painter in the country
A painter needs such mathematics as belong to painting, and the severance from companions who are not in sympathy with his studies; and his brain should have the power of adapting itself to the variety of objects which present themselves before it; and he should be free from other cares. And if, while considering and defining one case, a second should intervene, as happens when an object occupies the mind, then he must decide which of these cases is the more difficult to work out, and follow that until it becomes entirely clear, and then work out the explanation of the other; and above all he should keep his mind as clear as the surface of a mirror, which becomes changed to as many different colours as are those of the objects; and his companions should resemble him as to their studies, and if he fail to find any he should keep his speculations to himself alone, for in the end he will find no more useful company.234
Studying when you wake, or before you go to sleep in the dark
I have found in my own experience that it is of no small benefit when you lie in bed in the dark to go over again in the imagination the outlines of the forms you have been studying or of other noteworthy things conceived by subtle speculation; and this is certainly a praiseworthy exercise and useful in impressing things on the memory.235
The mind of a painter should be like a mirror, which always takes the colour of the object it reflects and is filled by the images of as many objects as are in front of it. Therefore you must know that you cannot be a good painter unless you are universal master to represent by your art every kind of form produced by nature. And this you will not know how to do unless you see them and retain them in your mind. Therefore as you walk through the fields turn your attention to the various objects and look now at this thing and now at that, collecting a store of divers facts selected and chosen from those of less value. And do not do like some painters who, when tired in their mind, dismiss their work from their thoughts and take exercise by walking for relaxation keeping, however, such weariness of mind as prevents them from apprehending the objects they see; but often when they meet friends or relatives and being saluted by them although they may see and hear them take no more cognizance of them than if they had met so much air.236
What induces you, O man, to depart from your home in town, to leave parents and friends, and go to the countryside over mountains and valleys, if it is not the beauty of the world of nature which, if you consider well, you can only enjoy through the sense of sight; and since the poet in this claims to compete with the painter, why do you not take the poet’s descriptions of such landscapes and stay at home without exposing yourself to the excessive heat of the sun? Would that not be more expedient and less fatiguing, since you could stay in a cool place without moving about and exposing yourself to illness? But your soul could not enjoy the pleasures that come to it through the eyes, the windows of its habitation, it could not receive the reflections of bright places, it could not see the shady valleys watered by the play of meandering rivers, it could not see the many flowers which with their various colours compose harmonies for the eye, nor all the other things which may present themselves to the eye. But if a painter on a cold and severe winter’s day shows you his paintings of these or other countrysides where you once enjoyed yourself beside some fountain, and where you can see yourself again in flowery meadows as a lover by the side of your beloved under the cool, soft shadows of green trees, will it not give you much greater pleasure than listening to the poet’s description of such a scene?237
The time for studying selection of subjects
Winter evenings should be spent by young students in study of the things prepared during the summer; that is, all the drawings from the nude which you have made in the summer should be brought together and a choice made of the best limbs and bodies from among them to apply in practice and commit to memory.
Of attitudes
Afterwards, in the following summer you should select someone who is well grown, and has not been brought up in doublets and whose figure has therefore lost its natural bearing, and make him go through some graceful and elegant movements; and if his muscles do not show plainly within the outlines of his limbs this is of no consequence. It is enough for you to obtain good attitudes from the figure, and you can correct the limbs by those which you have studied in the winter.
Of the way of learning correctly how to compose
groups of figures in historical pictures
When you have well learnt perspective and have fixed in your memory all the parts and forms of objects, you should go about and often as you go for walks observe and consider the circumstances and behaviour of men as they talk and quarrel, or laugh or come to blows with one another; the actions of the men themselves and of the bystanders, who intervene or look on. And take a note of them with rapid strokes thus—in a little book which you should always carry with you; and let this be of tinted paper; and so that it may not be rubbed out, change the old f
or a new one; since these things should not be rubbed out but preserved with great care; for the forms and positions of objects are so infinite that the memory is incapable of retaining them, wherefore keep these as your guides and masters.231
Whether it is better to draw in company or no
I say and insist that drawing in company is much better than alone, for many reasons. The first is that you would be ashamed of being seen among a number of draughtsmen if you are weak, and this feeling of shame will lead you to good study; secondly a wholesome envy will stimulate you to join the number of those who are more praised than you are, for the praise of others will spur you on; yet another is that you can learn from the drawings of those who do better than yourself; and if you are better than the others, you can profit by your contempt for their defects, and the praise of others will incite you to further efforts.235
Of judging your own pictures
We know very well that errors are better recognized in the works of others than in our own; and often by reproving little faults in others, we may ignore great ones in ourselves. . . . I say that when you paint you should have a flat mirror and often look at your work as reflected in it, when you will see it reversed, and it will appear to you like some other painter’s work, so you will be better able to judge of its faults than in any other way. Again it is well that you should often leave off work and take a little relaxation, because when you come back to it you are a better judge; for sitting too close at work may greatly deceive you. Again it is good to retire to a distance because the work looks smaller and your eye takes in more of it at a glance and sees more easily the lack of harmony and proportion in the limbs and colours of the objects.238
As the body with great slowness produced by the extent of its contrary movement turns in greater space and thereby gives a stouter blow, whereas shorter movements have little strength, so the study of the same subject made at long intervals of time causes the judgement to become more perfect and more able to recognize its own mistakes. And the same is true of the eye of the painter as it draws further away from the picture.239
Of the choice of beautiful faces
It seems to me no small grace in a painter to be able to give a pleasing air to his figures, and this grace, if he have it not by nature, he may acquire it by incidental study in this way: Look about you and take the best parts of many beautiful faces, of which the beauty is established rather by public fame than by your own judgement; for you may deceive yourself and select faces which bear a resemblance to your own, since it would often seem that such resemblance pleases us; and if you were ugly you would select faces that are not beautiful, and you would then create ugly faces as many painters do. For often a master’s shapes resemble himself; so therefore select beauties as I tell you and fix them in your mind.231
Of selecting the light which gives most grace to faces
If you should have a courtyard that you can at pleasure cover with a linen awning that light will be good. Or when you want to take a portrait do it in dull weather, or as evening falls, placing the sitter with his back to one of the walls of the courtyard. Note the faces of the men and women in the streets as evening falls and when the weather is dull, what softness and delicacy you may perceive in them. Therefore, O Painter! have a court arranged with the walls tinted black and a narrow roof projecting within the walls. It should be 10 braccia wide and 20 braccia long and 10 braccia high and covered with a linen awning when the sun is shining; or else paint a portrait towards the evening or when it is cloudy or misty; and this is perfect lighting.240
Rule to be given to boys learning to paint
We know clearly that vision is one of the swiftest actions that there is, and in one instant we see infinite forms; nevertheless, we understand only one thing at a time.
Suppose that you, reader, were to glance rapidly at all this written page, and you will quickly perceive that it is full of various letters, but in this time you could not recognize what letters they are nor what they were meant to tell. Hence you need to proceed word by word, line by line, to be able to understand these letters. Again, if you wish to mount to the top of an edifice you must go up step by step; otherwise it will be impossible to reach the top. So I say to you, whom nature turns to this art, if you wish to have knowledge of the forms of things, you will begin with their details, and not go on to the second until you have the first well fixed in memory and in practice. And if you do otherwise, you will waste your time, or certainly you will prolong your study a good deal; and remember to acquire diligence first, rather than rapidity.238
That diligence should first be learnt rather than rapid execution
If as draughtsman you desire to study well and to good purpose, accustom yourself to work slowly when you are drawing, and discriminate in the lights which have the highest degree of brightness, and likewise in the shadows, which are those that are darker than the others and in what way they join one another; and then their dimensions and the relative proportions of one to another; and note in the outlines which way they are tending, and in the lines what part of them is curved to one side or the other, and where they are more or less conspicuous and where they are broad or fine; and finally that your shadows and lights blend like smoke without strokes or borders: And when you shall have schooled your hand and your judgement by such diligence, you will acquire rapid execution before you are aware.231
These rules are to be used only in testing the figures; since every man makes certain mistakes in his first compositions and he who knows them not cannot amend them. Therefore, you being aware of errors test your work and where you find mistakes amend them, and remember never to fall into them again. But if you try to apply these rules in composition you would never make a beginning and would cause confusion in your work.
These rules are intended to give you a free and good judgement; since good judgement proceeds from clear understanding, and a clear understanding comes from reason derived from sound rules, and sound rules are the daughters of sound experience—the common mother of all the sciences and arts. Therefore bearing in mind the precepts of my rules, you will be able, merely by your amended judgement to judge and recognize everything that is out of proportion in a work, whether it is in the perspective or in the figures or other things.241
Many who have not studied the theory of shade and light and of perspective turn to nature and copy her; they thus acquire a certain practice simply by copying without studying or analysing nature further. There are some who look at the objects of nature through glass* or transparent paper or veils and make tracings on the transparent surface; and they then adjust their outlines, adding on here and there to make them conform to the laws of proportion, and they introduce chiaroscuro by filling in the positions, sizes, and shapes of the shadows and lights. These practices may be praiseworthy in him who knows how to represent effects of nature by his imagination and only resorts to them in order to save trouble and not to fail in the slightest particular in the truthful imitation of a thing whereof a precise likeness is required; but they are reprehensible in him who cannot portray without them nor use his own mind in analyses, because through such laziness he destroys his own intelligence and he will never be able to produce anything good without such contrivance. Men like this will always be poor and weak in imaginative work or historical composition.242
The painter who draws by practice and judgement of the eye without the use of reason is like a mirror which copies everything placed in front of it without knowledge of the same.243
Those who are enamoured of practice without science are like the pilot who gets into a ship without rudder or compass and who never has any certainty where he is going. Practice should always be based on sound theory, of which perspective is the guide and gateway, and without it nothing can be done well in any kind of painting.244
How the painter is not worthy of praise unless he is universal
It may be frankly admitted that certain people deceive themselves who call a painter a ‘good master
’ who can only do the head or the figure well. Surely it is no great achievement if after studying one thing only during his whole lifetime he attain to some perfection. But since we know that painting embraces and contains within itself all things which nature produces, or which result from the fortuitous actions of man, and in short whatever can be comprehended by the eyes, it would seem to me that he is but a poor master who makes only a single figure well. For do you not see how many and how varied are the actions performed by men alone? Do you not see how many different animals there are, and also trees and plants and flowers? What variety of mountainous regions and plains, of springs, rivers, cities with public and private buildings, instruments fitted for man’s use; of divers costumes, ornaments, and arts? All these things should be rendered with equal facility and perfection by whomever you wish to call a good painter.245
How in works of importance a man should not trust so entirely
to his memory as to disdain to draw from nature
Any master who should venture to boast that he could remember all the forms and effects of nature would certainly appear to me to be graced with great ignorance, in as much as these effects are infinite and our memory is not of so great capacity as to suffice thereto. Hence, O painter, beware lest the greed of gain should supplant in you the renown in art, for to gain this renown is a far greater thing than is the renown of riches. Hence for these and other reasons which might be given, you should first strive in drawing to present to the eye in expressive form the purpose and invention created originally in your imagination, then proceed by taking off and putting on until you satisfy yourself; then have men arranged as models draped or nude in the way in which you have disposed them in your work; and make the dimensions and size as determined by perspective, so that nothing remains in the work that is not so counselled by reason and by the effects in nature. And this will be the way to make yourself renowned in your art.235
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