to wonder at its nature, as painting does, which in a plane
by its science shows vast countries and far-off horizons.

36.

The only difference between painting and sculpture is that the sculptor
accomplishes his work with the greater bodily fatigue, and the painter
with the greater mental fatigue. This is proved by the fact that the
sculptor in practising his art is obliged to exert his arms and to
strike and shatter the marble or other stone, which remains over and
above what is needed for the figure which it contains, by manual
exercise, accompanied often by profuse sweating, mingled with dust and
transforming itself into dirt; and his face is plastered and powdered
with the dust of the marble, so that he has the appearance of a baker,
and he is covered with minute chips, and it appears as if snow had
fallen on him, and his dwelling is dirty and full of chips and the dust
of stone.

The contrary occurs in the case of the painter,--we are speaking of
excellent painters and sculptors,--since the painter with great leisure
sits before his work well clothed, and handles the light brush dipped
in lovely colours. He wears {97} what garments he pleases; his
dwelling is full of beautiful pictures, and it is clean; sometimes he
has music or readers of diverse and pleasant works, which, without any
noise of hammers or other confused sounds, are heard with great
pleasure.

37.

There can be no comparison between the talent, art and theory of
painting and that of sculpture, which leaves perspective out of
account,--perspective which is produced by the quality of the material
and not of the artist. And if the sculptor says that he cannot restore
the superabundant substance which has once been removed from his work,
I answer that he who removes too much has but little understanding and
is no master. Because if he has mastered the proportions he will not
remove anything unnecessarily; therefore we will say that this
disadvantage is inherent in the artist and not in the material. But I
will not speak of such men, for they are spoilers of marble and not
artists.

Artists do not trust to the judgement of the eye, because it is always
deceptive, as is proved by him who wishes to divide a line into two
equal parts by the eye, and is often deceived in the experiment;
wherefore the good judges always fear--a fear which is not shared by
the ignorant--to trust to their own judgement, and on this account they
proceed by con