Leon Battista Alberti advises the beginning artist:
Take care not to do as many who learn to draw on small tablets. I prefer you to practise by drawing things large, as if equal in representation and reality. In small drawings every large weakness is easily hidden; in the large the smallest weakness is easily seen.
Galen, the doctor, writes that in his time he saw carved on a ring Phaethon drawn by four horses whose reins, breasts and feet were distinctly seen. Our painters leave this sort of fame to the sculptors of gems, for they are engaged in greater fields of praise. Anyone who knows how to paint a large figure well can easily form other small things with a single stroke. One who uses his hand and mind on these little coral necklaces and bracelets will easily err in larger things.
(Quoted from page 94 of On Painting, by Leon Battista Alberti; translated by John R. Spencer. Yale University Press, 1956.)
For a brief biography of Leon Battista Alberti, click here. For images of or relating to Leon Battista Alberti, click here.
For a brief biography of John R. Spencer, click here.
Take care not to do as many who learn to draw on small tablets. I prefer you to practise by drawing things large, as if equal in representation and reality. In small drawings every large weakness is easily hidden; in the large the smallest weakness is easily seen.
Galen, the doctor, writes that in his time he saw carved on a ring Phaethon drawn by four horses whose reins, breasts and feet were distinctly seen. Our painters leave this sort of fame to the sculptors of gems, for they are engaged in greater fields of praise. Anyone who knows how to paint a large figure well can easily form other small things with a single stroke. One who uses his hand and mind on these little coral necklaces and bracelets will easily err in larger things.
(Quoted from page 94 of On Painting, by Leon Battista Alberti; translated by John R. Spencer. Yale University Press, 1956.)
For a brief biography of Leon Battista Alberti, click here. For images of or relating to Leon Battista Alberti, click here.
For a brief biography of John R. Spencer, click here.
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