The text discusses the importance of cultivating imagination, memory, and a positive disposition in students learning to draw, starting as early as ages ten or twelve. It emphasizes the necessity of practicing by imitating body parts and advises against over-reliance on engraving techniques for shading. The goal is to express ideas with simplicity and avoid overburdening the mind, maintaining creativity and avoiding a mechanical approach to drawing.
THE DRAWING.
It is important to stimulate a lively imagination and a good memory, and to ensure that they have a good temperament and perfect health because the study of drawing and the different parts of painting is one of the most demanding and requires a lot of dedication. To this end, students should begin at the age of ten or twelve, as they start to become capable of reasoning. Initially, they should imitate small parts of the human body, such as eyes, noses, ears, mouths, etc. (Plates 10, and following), which should be drawn in their presence, or from some original design, which is absolutely necessary for the first lessons. In this book, you will find examples of these different parts, engraved by the most excellent masters, which are good to have for them to copy when original designs are lacking. It is important to warn them not to imitate too slavishly the hatching that engravers must use to form shades; doing so would lead to a style of drawing that is too lean and dry. Instead, they should learn to express with a single stroke using a thick pencil, the touches that engraving could only achieve by means of several hatches placed side by side. Drawing is more a manifestation of the soul's understanding than manual labor, and since the mind cannot remain focused on the same object for too long, the effort required for this study should not be too long or too tiring. If the imagination cools down due to overly arduous work, what you create becomes nothing more than mechanical without vigor or taste, and cannot contribute in any way to the progress one seeks to achieve. However, it does not mean that one should listen to themselves until the point of becoming
Translation Notes
hatching: In artistic terms, a technique involving the use of lines to create shading effects.