The text discusses the historical decline and revival of painting and drawing, with a focus on the Italian contribution through the use of lamplight for shading. It highlights the precision required in drawing, emphasizing proportion, and the importance of systematic training in an academy setting. The text gives advice on setting up a suitable studio and choosing a well-proportioned model for drawing practice.
Of the Art of Drawing.
Among enthusiasts, even though the art of painting and drawing was highly esteemed among the Greeks and Romans in grandeur and perfection, through the errors of the ages and barbaric superstitions, it was almost annihilated and nearly banned from the world, much like Latin lost all its grace. Erasmus of Rotterdam helped restore it, and similarly, painting was revived around the year 12 in Florence by Cimabue, a young gentleman who revived it in part through the practice of nature and instruction from Greek sages. He cleared the cloudy mist, revealing a beautiful sun, whose bright and eminent rays were thus not diminished. The illustrators and painters of idols did not notice the measures and proportions but merely followed nature with simple lines, like the great Martin from Mainz, until the famous painters Michelangelo, Raphael, and the prince of German painters, Albrecht Dürer, like Henry Aldegrever and Sebald Beham, restored them truly. But it was the Italians who, being more industrious and subtle, found and used in the Academy the lamplight to better understand the art of shading, and in winter, when days were long and unproductive, they practiced form and outline.
I have conceived to establish an Academy or School of drawing without having a clear experience of the model, and by giving the figure or model a certain grace through suitable lamplight, without making an unsuitable figure. I have proposed to make a rather brief description of it, since no one has written about this material since the famous painter Charles de Mander and Paolo Lomazzo. I will therefore relate what I have learned and experimented with through frequentation of brave Masters. Touching upon the manner of using the lamp, you can clearly see this in my first folio, but care must be taken with the lamp to be hung no higher than 12 feet, ensuring those who draw can get suitable light on their paper. It is necessary to have a suitable studio that is not too spacious or high, so in winter when it rains you can have a better coal stove or charcoal heater. Likewise, it is also necessary that the studio be properly prepared, choosing a model of a well-proportioned man who is neither too obese nor too thin, having well-shaped thighs and nice legs, and it is also necessary that the model help the posing.
But looking into this will never suffice as a reason; for I have sought authors who have written extensively on those who have frequent and design with the great men of their time who abolished such as the clever Michelangelo, Raphael, and other painters who in their times worked beautifully with cire and wood, so deftly defining the rule to pose well with their figures or model.