Page:Thoughts on art and life.djvu/152

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The and deduce rules from them, taking the place, Vari- the circumstances, the light and the shade into ety of consideration. Nature

69.

I say that the universal proportions must be observed in the height of figures and not in their size, because in the admirable and marvellous things which appear in the works of nature there is no work of whatsoever character in which one detail is exactly similar to another; therefore, O thou imitator of nature, pay heed to the variety of features.

70.

Radically wrong is the procedure of some mas- ters who are in the habit of repeating the same themes in the same episodes, and whose types of beauty are likewise the same, for in nature they are never repeated, so that if all the beauties of equal excellence were to come to life again they would compose a larger population than that now existing in our century, and since in the present century no one person is precisely similar to another, so would it be among the beauties mentioned above.

71.

You must depict your figures with gestures which will show what the figure has in his mind, otherwise your art will not be praiseworthy.

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