DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19388#0027
IN THE FIRST PLATE. 19
FIGURE IX.
Is an attempt to shew, with certainty, how to draw that curved line which the
Author of the Analysis of Beauty has, with as great propriety as authority, termed the
line of beauty; and upon the use and properties of which he has obliged the world
with a very elegant, ingenious, and instructive Treatise : it has however been object-
ed, that he has omitted to give a rule whereby the precise line of beauty may be found;
in consequence of which objection, and in order to enforce the study of that line, this
figure is given; not as a mathematical demonstration, nor as an insult upon the au-
thor of the Analysis of Beauty (whose meaning is very obvious, though perhaps not
so fully explained as to silence the clamours of ignorance and detraction,) but as a
line extremely well worth studying, being in itself simple, elegant, easily drawn,
and the precise line of beauty described by that great artist, whose plain unaffected
manner of referring to the most familiar objects for the explanation of his ideas, we
shall endeavour to follow, and inform the Reader, that it is to be found in an or-
nament well known to every school-boy; that of a six-pointed star, of which the con-
trasted halves of any two opposite give the line required.
The Construction of the Ninth Figure.
Divide a circle into four equal parts by the rule before given. The semi-diame-
ter, or the distance from A to C will, if the figure be drawn exactly, be equal to one
sixth part of the circumference, set off therefore half the diameter from D to J3, and
from E to F, and keeping the same distance from the point F draw E C and from the
point B draw C D.
FIGURE X.
This figure is founded upon a precept said to be given by the celebrated Michael
Angelo to his scholar Marcus de Scienna, which according to Lomazzo, was " that he
should always make a figure pyramidal, serpent.like, and multiplied by one, two, and three,"*
which precept, as the Author of the Analysis, observes, hath remained a mystery
down to this time; and indeed it appears not only to be mysterious but absurd; to
talk of multiplying by the number One is a gross impropriety; and that Michael
Angelo should advise his scholar always to make a figure pyramidal and serpentine,
and multiplied by those numbers, must be a mistake, for every figure in a picture can-
not possibly admit of such a rule: for instance, it is not to be preserved hi a figure
sitting or stooping, and consequently Michael Angelo, who well knew the necessity
of such attitudes, would never impose such a stricture. The truth is, this famous
* See Haydocke's Translation printed at Oxford in 1598.
FIGURE IX.
Is an attempt to shew, with certainty, how to draw that curved line which the
Author of the Analysis of Beauty has, with as great propriety as authority, termed the
line of beauty; and upon the use and properties of which he has obliged the world
with a very elegant, ingenious, and instructive Treatise : it has however been object-
ed, that he has omitted to give a rule whereby the precise line of beauty may be found;
in consequence of which objection, and in order to enforce the study of that line, this
figure is given; not as a mathematical demonstration, nor as an insult upon the au-
thor of the Analysis of Beauty (whose meaning is very obvious, though perhaps not
so fully explained as to silence the clamours of ignorance and detraction,) but as a
line extremely well worth studying, being in itself simple, elegant, easily drawn,
and the precise line of beauty described by that great artist, whose plain unaffected
manner of referring to the most familiar objects for the explanation of his ideas, we
shall endeavour to follow, and inform the Reader, that it is to be found in an or-
nament well known to every school-boy; that of a six-pointed star, of which the con-
trasted halves of any two opposite give the line required.
The Construction of the Ninth Figure.
Divide a circle into four equal parts by the rule before given. The semi-diame-
ter, or the distance from A to C will, if the figure be drawn exactly, be equal to one
sixth part of the circumference, set off therefore half the diameter from D to J3, and
from E to F, and keeping the same distance from the point F draw E C and from the
point B draw C D.
FIGURE X.
This figure is founded upon a precept said to be given by the celebrated Michael
Angelo to his scholar Marcus de Scienna, which according to Lomazzo, was " that he
should always make a figure pyramidal, serpent.like, and multiplied by one, two, and three,"*
which precept, as the Author of the Analysis, observes, hath remained a mystery
down to this time; and indeed it appears not only to be mysterious but absurd; to
talk of multiplying by the number One is a gross impropriety; and that Michael
Angelo should advise his scholar always to make a figure pyramidal and serpentine,
and multiplied by those numbers, must be a mistake, for every figure in a picture can-
not possibly admit of such a rule: for instance, it is not to be preserved hi a figure
sitting or stooping, and consequently Michael Angelo, who well knew the necessity
of such attitudes, would never impose such a stricture. The truth is, this famous
* See Haydocke's Translation printed at Oxford in 1598.