emptest to
apply these rules in composition thou wilt never finish anything, and
confusion will enter into thy work. Through these rules thou shalt
acquire a free and sound judgement, since sound judgement and thorough
understanding proceed from reason arising from sound rules, and sound
rules are the offspring of sound experience, the common mother of all
the sciences and arts. Hence if thou bearest in mind the precepts of
my rules thou shalt be able, merely by thy corrected judgement, to
judge and recognize any lack of proportion in a work, in perspective,
in figures or anything else.

{110}

[Sidenote: Again of the Method of Learning]

60.

I say that the first thing which should be learnt is the mechanism of
the limbs, and when this knowledge has been acquired their actions
should come next, according to the external circumstances of man, and
thirdly the composition of subjects, which should be taken from natural
actions, made fortuitously according to circumstances; and pay
attention to them in the streets and public places and fields, and note
them with a brief indication of outlines; that is to say, for a head
make an O, and for an arm a straight or a bent line, and the same for
the legs and body; and when thou returnest home work out these notes in
a complete form. The adversary says that to acquire practice and to do
a great deal of work, it is better that the first course of study
should be employed in copying diverse compositions done on paper or on
walls by various masters, and that thus rapidity of practice and a good
method is acquired; to which I reply that this method will be good if
it is based on works which are well composed by competent masters; and
since such masters are so rare that but few of them are to be found, it
is safer to go to nature, than to what to its deterioration is imitated
from nature, and to fall into bad habits, since he who can go to the
fountain does not go to the water-vessel.

{111}

[Sidenote: Counsel to the Painter]

61.

Every bough and every fruit is born above the insertion of its leaf,
which serves it as a mother, giving it water from the rain and moisture
from the dew which falls on it from above in the night, and often it
shields them from the heat of the sun's rays. Therefore, O painter,
who lackest such rules, be desirous, in order to escape the blame of
those who know, of copying every one of thy objects from nature, and
despise not study after the m