Dorigny, Nicolas [Hrsg.]; Raffaello <Sanzio> [Hrsg.]; Duchange, Gaspard [Ill.]; Ralph, Benjamin [Mitarb.]: The School Of Raphael, Or, The Student's Guide To Expression In Historical Painting: Ilustrated By Examples Engraved By Duchange, And Others, Under The Inspection Of Sir Nicholas Dorigny, From His Own Drawings, After The most celebrated Heads in the Cartoons at the King's Palace. To Which Are Now Added, The Outlines Of Each Head, And Also Several Plates Of The Most Celebrated Antique Statutes, Skeletons, And Anatomical Figures, Engraved by an Eminent Artist. With Instructions For Young Students In The Art Of Designing. And The Passions, As Characterised By Raphael In The Cartoons. Described And Explained By Benjamin Ralph (London, [ca. 1804])

i

OF THE

STUDY OF GEOMETRICAL FIGURES.

^HOUGH this part of the Work will undoubtedly be censured by those who are
contented with a superficial knowledge of the Art of Designing, yet the end
proposed will be sufficiently answered, if it meet with the approbation of the few;
let those who deride admonition, and choose to wanton upon the surface of the
stream, float gently down it, and divert themselves with the sticks and weeds with
which they will be insensibly and inevitably entangled.

" Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow,
Those who would search for pearls must dive below."

However, it is not expected, nor is it indeed necessary, that a perfect designer
should be a perfect geometrician; but it is certainly expected that he should be
acquainted with the form and construction of the most simple geometrical figures,
which are, in fact, the basis of the art he would study: to those, therefore, who
would attain to a masterly manner of designing, it is recommended to study care-
fully the figures described in Plate I; to make them familiar, and to endeavour to
imitate their forms rather by the hand, guided by judgment, than the rule and com-
pass ; for, as Fresnoy judiciously observes, The compass should rather be in the
painter s eyes, than his hands. But as the true construction of these figures is easily
attained, it will probably argue either self-sufficiency or indolence not to be ac-
quainted with it.

EXPLANATION OF THE GEOMETRICAL FIGURES IN THE FIRST PLATE.

FIGURE I.

To bisect (or cut in two equal parts) a given Line.

Set one point of the compasses in A, and, opening them something more than
half the length of the line, describe a semicircle, and from the point B do the same,
and draw a line through their intersections.

F