NEATNESS (n.)
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After these, let our Learner design the several members of bodies a part, and then united, with intire Figures and Stories, till he be able to compose something of his own, which may support the examination of qualified Judges. But the προχαραγμα or first draughts of these ; would not be with too great curiosity, and the several minutiae that appear in many Coppies ; but with a certain free and judicious negligence, rather aiming at the Original, than painting of your self with overmuch exactnesse : for nocere saepe nimiam diligentiam, was an old observation ; and therefore the antient Painters (sayes Philostratus) more esteem’d a certain true and liberal Draught, than the neatness of the Figure, as he expresses it in Amphiaraus’s Horse, sweating after the conflict ; since Drawings and Designes are not to be like Polycletus’s Canon, which took its several parts, from as many perfect bodies, by a studied, and most accurate Symmetrie : it shall suffice that the prime conceptions of our Artist be perform’d with less contraint ;
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Neatness, and high Finishing ; a Light, Bold Pencil ; Gay, and Vivid Colours, Warm, and Sombrous ; Force, and Tenderness, All these are Excellencies when judiciously employ’d, and in Subserviency to the Principal End of the Art ; But they are Beauties of an Inferior Kind even when So employ’d ; they are the Mechanick Parts of Painting, and require no more Genius, or Capacity, than is necessary to, and frequently seen in Ordinary Workmen ; […] ; These properties are in Painting, as Language, Rhime, and Numbers are in Poetry ; and as he that stops at These as at what Constitutes the Goodness of a Poem is a Bad Critick, He is an Ill Connoisseur who has the same Consideration for these Inferious Excellencies in a Picture.
Contrairement aux autres passages de l'Essay on the Theory of Painting, la préface n'est pas traduite dans l'édition française de 1728.