The text discusses the importance of understanding proportions in art, originating from nature, and the need to study anatomy and established proportions for creating a perfect figure. It highlights the unique attributes that Antique art brings to the understanding of beauty, grace, and expression. The text suggests that studying Antique figures is crucial for artists to grasp the essence of beauty and accurately represent nature.
Method for Learning
If proportion consists of making a good choice, this choice originates from nature. But after anatomy, follows the study of proportions. There are generally accepted proportions that one must first know well, meaning, those that are generally suitable for each part, to make a complete whole. For example, one must know how a head should be constructed, a foot, a hand, and finally the entire body, to form a perfect figure. Now, as nature differs in its works, one must examine what it can do most beautifully in the different characters encountered in the external shape of humans, relative to the diversity of ages, countries, sexes, and conditions.
It is true that nature first offers us an abundance of infinite variety; but, as riches do not come without mixture, it is better to resort to the Antique, which should serve as a rule for us, by the exquisite choice it made with deep knowledge of all these conveniences.
On the Study of the Antique.
Since it is certain that Antique figures contain not only all the beauty within proportions, but they are also the source of grace, elegance, and expressions: it is all the more necessary to study them, because they guide one on the path to true beauty. One must therefore practice it, without regard for the time it requires to fully possess it; for, since the Antique is the rule of beauty, one must draw it until forming a just and strong idea of it, which serves to truly see nature, and to bring it back to its original intentions.