DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.73713#0110
106
THE WORKS OF
and srom whence it arises, that the original be-
ing taken away, and see themselves in anecessity
to compose a work in which occur other things
and circumstances different from that which
they have copied, they find themselves without
a guide. But he who effectively studys and ob-
serves the productions os great men with the
true desire of imitating them, makes himself
capable of producing works which resemble
them,becausehe considers the reasons with which
they are done ; and in that manner, comprehend-
ding them, can adapt them to all things where
they are suitable, and thus it makes him an
imitator without being a plagiarist.
From what I have faid, I conclude that the
beginners of painting ought to apply themselves
to study well the works of great men, not how-
ever only to imitate them blindly, but to the
end of finding out which are the partsof nature
they have chosen to imitate, persuading them-
selves that nothing is good in their works if it be not
conformable to, nature. After having acquired
a certain practice in copying thesaid works, they
ought to study the same in nature, and to ob-
serve what parts most resemble the choice of the
matters whose works the study to copy. In
that manner one will be enabled to follow what-
.soever natural inclination one may have, and
even although one does not arrive to equal the
inasters one propofes to imitate, following na-
ture, one flfall not fail of acquiring sufficient
merit and honor in the art; because nature is so
abundant and various in her productions that sive
THE WORKS OF
and srom whence it arises, that the original be-
ing taken away, and see themselves in anecessity
to compose a work in which occur other things
and circumstances different from that which
they have copied, they find themselves without
a guide. But he who effectively studys and ob-
serves the productions os great men with the
true desire of imitating them, makes himself
capable of producing works which resemble
them,becausehe considers the reasons with which
they are done ; and in that manner, comprehend-
ding them, can adapt them to all things where
they are suitable, and thus it makes him an
imitator without being a plagiarist.
From what I have faid, I conclude that the
beginners of painting ought to apply themselves
to study well the works of great men, not how-
ever only to imitate them blindly, but to the
end of finding out which are the partsof nature
they have chosen to imitate, persuading them-
selves that nothing is good in their works if it be not
conformable to, nature. After having acquired
a certain practice in copying thesaid works, they
ought to study the same in nature, and to ob-
serve what parts most resemble the choice of the
matters whose works the study to copy. In
that manner one will be enabled to follow what-
.soever natural inclination one may have, and
even although one does not arrive to equal the
inasters one propofes to imitate, following na-
ture, one flfall not fail of acquiring sufficient
merit and honor in the art; because nature is so
abundant and various in her productions that sive