be considered in the drapery. As supposing them to be magistrates, their draperies ought to be large and 210. sample; if country clowns, or slaves, they ought to be coarse and short;

if ladies, or damsels, light and soft It is sometimes requisite to draw out, as it were from the hollows and deep shadows, some fold, and give it a swelling, that so receiving the light, it may contribute to extend the clearness to those places where the body requires it; and by this means we shall disburden the piece of those hard shadowings, which are always ungraceful.

215.

contribute ts

* The marks or ensigns of virtues XXIII. contribute not a little, by their noble- What things ness, to the ornament of the figures. adorn the Such, for example, as are the deco- picture. rations belonging to the liberal arts, to war, or sacrifices.

XXIV.

*But let not the work be too much of precious enriched with gold or jewels; "for stones and pearl for or the abundance or them makes them naments. look cheap, their value arising from the scarcity."

XXV.

It is very expedient to make a The model model of those things, which we have not in our sight, and whose nature 229. is difficult to be retained in the memory. XXVI We are to consider the places The scene of where we lay the scene of the picthe picture. ture; the countries where they were born, whom we represent; the manner of their actions, their laws, and customs, and all that is properly belonging to them.

XXVII.

bleness.

Let a nobleness and grace be The graces remarkable through all your work. and the noBut, to confess the truth, this is a most difficult undertaking, and a very rare present, which the artist receives rather from the hand of Heaven, than from his own industry and studies.

XXVIII.

In all things you are to follow the Let every order of nature; for which reason thing be set in its prover you must beware of drawing or place painting clouds, winds, and thunder, towards the bottom of your piece, and hell, and waters, in the uppermost 225. parts of it; you are not to place a stone column on a foundation of reeds, but let every thing be set in its proper place.

whom Jupiter regards

with a favourable eye in this undertaking; so that it appertains only to those few, who participate somewhat of divinity itself, to work these mighty wonders. It is the business of rhetoricians, to treat the charac- 225. ters of the passions; and I shall content myself with repeating what an excellent master has formerly said on this subject, that a "true and lively expression of the passions, is rather the work of genius, than of labour and study."

*

240.

ments are c

We are to have no manner of rel- XXX. ish for Gothic ornaments, as being in Gothic orna effect so many monsters, which bar- be avoided. barous ages have produced; during which, when discord and ambition, caused by the too large extent of the Roman empire, had produced wars, plagues, and famine, through the world, then I say the stately buildings and colosses fell to ruin, and tho nobleness of all beautiful arts was totally extinguished. Then it was that the admirable, and almost su- 25. pernatural, works of painting were made fuel for the fire; but that this wonderful art might not wholly perish, some relics of it took sanctu ary under ground, "in sepulchres and catacombs," and thereby escaped the common destiny. And in the same profane age, sculpture was for a long time buried under the same ruins, with all its beautiful productions and admirable statues. The empire, in the mean time, under the weight of its proper crimes, and undeserving to enjoy the day, was enveloped with a hideous night, which plunged it into an abyss of errors, and covered with a thick darkness of ignorance those unhappy ages, in just revenge of their impieties. From hence it comes to pass, that the works of those great Grecians are wanting to us; nothing of their painting and colouring now remains to assist our modern artists either in the invention, or the manner

Pert of

of those ancients. Neither is there 250. any man who is able to restore* the chromatic part, or colouring, or to Colouring renew it to that point of excellency the third to which it had been carried by painting. Zeuxis; who by this part, which is so charming, so magical, and which so admirably deceives the sight, made himself equal to the great Apelles, that prince of painters; and deserved that height of reputation, which he still possesses in the world.

And as this part, which we may call the utmost perfection of painting, is a deceiving beauty, but withal soothing and pleasing; so she has been accused of procuring lovers for * her sister, and artfully engaging us

230.

this prostitution, these false colours, and this deceit, dishonoured paint- 265. ing, that, on the contrary, they have only served to set forth her praise, and to make her merit farther known; and therefore it will be profitable to us, to have a more clear understanding of what we call colouring.

*The light produces all kinds of colours, and the shadow gives us none. The more a body is nearer to the eyes, and the more directly it is opposed to them, the more it is enlightened: Because the light languishes and lessens, the farther it removes from its proper source.

The nearer the object is to the go. eyes, and the more directly it is opposed to them, the better it is seen; because the sight is weakened by distance.

ΧΧΧ.

duct of th

shadows

It is therefore necessary, "that The co those parts of round bodies which are of seen directly opposite to the spectator, light and should have the light entire ;" and " that the extremities turn, in losing themselves insensibly and confusedly, without precipitating the light all on the sudden into the shadow, or the 275 shadow into the light. But the passage of one into the other must be common and imperceptible, that is, by degrees of lights into shadows, and of shadows into lights. And it is in conformity to these principles, that you ought to treat a whole group of figures, though it be composed of several parts, in the same manner as

you would do a single head: "or if 280
the wideness of the space, or large-
ness of the composition, requires
that you should have two groups or
three, (which should be the most,)
let the lights and shadows be so dis-
creetly managed, that light bodies
may have a sufficient mass or breadth
of shadow to sustain them, and that
dark bodies may have a sudden light
behind to detach them from the
ground.

"As in a convex mirror, the
collected rays strike stronger and
brighter in the middle than upon the
natural object, and the vivacity of
the colours is increased in the parts
full in your sight; while the goings
off are more and more broken and
faint as they approach to the extrem-
ities, in the same manner bodies are 290
to be raised and rounded."

Thus the painter and the sculptor are to work with one and the same intention, and with one and the same conduct. For what the sculptor strikes off, and makes round with his tool, the painter performs with his pencil, casting behind that which he 295 makes less visible, by the dimunition and breaking of his colours: "That which is foremost and nearest to the eye, must be so distinctly expressed, as to be sharp, or almost cutting to the sight. Thus shall the colours be disposed upon a plane, which from a proper place and distance will seem 200. so natural and round, as to make the figures appear so many statues. XXXIA "Solid bodies subject to the of dark touch, are not to be painted transpar-light ent; and even when such bodies are grounds. placed upon transparent grounds, as upon clouds, waters, air, and the like vacuities, they must be preserved opaque, that their solidity be not destroyed among those light, aerial, 305. transparent species; and must therefore be expressed sharper and rougher than what is next to them, more dis

†The French translator here, as well as Mr. Dryden, is unintelligible; which happened by their mistaking the meaning of the word opaca, which is not put for dark, but opaque in opposition to transparent; for a white garment may be opaque, &c.

bodies on

tinct by a firm light and shadow,
and with more solid and substantial
colours; that, on the contrary, the 310.
smoother and more transparent may

be thrown off to a farther distance." XXXIII

two equal

We are never to admit two equal That there lights in the same picture, but the must not be greater light must strike forcibly on lights in a the middle; and there extend its picture greatest clearness on those places of the picture, where the principal figures of it are, and where the strength 315. of the action is performed; diminishing by degrees as it comes nearer and nearer to the borders: and after the same manner that the light of the sun languishes insensibly, in its spreading from the east, from whence it begins, towards the west, where it decays and vanishes; so the light of the picture being distributed over all the colours, will become less sensible 320. the farther it is removed from its original.

The experience of this is evident in those statues which we see set up in the midst of public places, whose upper parts are more enlightened than the lower; and therefore you are to imitate them in the distribution of your lights.

Avoid strong shadows on the middle of the limbs, lest the great quantity of black which composes those shadows should seem to enter into them, and to cut them: rather take 325. care to place those shadowings round about them, thereby to heighten the parts; and take such advantageous lights, that after great lights great shadows may succeed. And therefore Titian said, with reason, that he knew no better rule for the distribution of the lights and shadows, than his observations drawn from a * bunch grapes.

of

XXX.7

* Pure, or unmixed white, either 330. draws an object nearer, or carries it of white off to a farther distance; draws it and black. nearer with black, and throws it backward without it. * But as for pure black, there is nothing which brings the object nearer to the sight.

The light being altered by some colour, never fails to communicate somewhat of that colour to the bodies on which it strikes; and the same