530.

OF JUDGING YOUR OWN PICTURES.

We know very well that errors are better recognised in the works of others than in our own; and that often, while reproving little faults in others, you may ignore great ones in yourself.  To avoid such ignorance, in the first place make yourself a master of perspective, then acquire perfect knowledge of the proportions of men and other animals, and also, study good architecture, that is so far as concerns the forms of buildings and other objects which are on the face of the earth; these forms are infinite, and the better you know them the more admirable will your work be.  And in cases where you lack experience do not shrink from drawing them from nature.  But, to carry out my promise above [in the title]—­I say that when you paint you should have a flat mirror and often look at your work as reflected in it, when you will see it reversed, and it will appear to you like some other painter’s work, so you will be better able to judge of its faults than in any other way.  Again, it is well that you should often leave off work and take a little relaxation, because, when you come back to it you are a better judge; for sitting too close at work may greatly deceive you.  Again, it is good to retire to a distance because the work looks smaller and your eye takes in more of it at a glance and sees more easily the discords or disproportion in the limbs and colours of the objects.

On the management of works (531. 532).

531.

OF A METHOD OF LEARNING WELL BY HEART.

When you want to know a thing you have studied in your memory proceed in this way:  When you have drawn the same thing so many times that you think you know it by heart, test it by drawing it without the model; but have the model traced on flat thin glass and lay this on the drawing you have made without the model, and note carefully where the tracing does not coincide with your drawing, and where you find you have gone wrong; and bear in mind not to repeat the same mistakes.  Then return to the model, and draw the part in which you were wrong again and again till you have it well in your mind.  If you have no flat glass for tracing on, take some very thin kidts-kin parchment, well oiled and dried.  And when you have used it for one drawing you can wash it clean with a sponge and make a second.

532.

THAT A PAINTER OUGHT TO BE CURIOUS TO HEAR THE OPINIONS OF EVERY ONE
ON HIS WORK.

Certainly while a man is painting he ought not to shrink from hearing every opinion.  For we know very well that a man, though he may not be a painter, is familiar with the forms of other men and very capable of judging whether they are hump backed, or have one shoulder higher or lower than the other, or too big a mouth or nose, and other defects; and, as we know that men are competent to judge of the works of nature, how much more ought we to admit that they can judge of our errors; since you know how much a man may be