Quotation

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 ; 

Conceptual field(s)