Page:Thoughts on art and life.djvu/96
Thus I wish to say, in regard to these mathematical matters, that they who merely study the masters and not the works of nature are the grandchildren, and not the children, of nature, the mistress of good masters. I abhor the supreme folly of those who blame the disciples of nature in defiance of those masters who were themselves her pupils.
2.
The first picture was a single line, drawn round the shadow of a man cast by the sun on the wall.
3.
Vastness of the field of painting: All that is visible is included in the science of painting.
4.
With due lamentation Painting complains that it has been expelled from the liberal arts, because it is the true daughter of nature and is practised by means of the most worthy of the senses. Whence wrongly, O writers, you have excluded painting from the liberal arts, since it not only includes in its range the works of nature, but also infinite things which nature never created.
5.
Because writers have had no knowledge of the science of painting, they have not been able to
60