¶ 412. “The first object of the painter is to make a flat plane appear as a body in relief and projecting from that plane, and he who in such art excels the others, deserves the greater praise, and such research, or rather crown of such science, is born from light and shade, or I mean chiaroscuro. Then he who flees from shadows, flees also from the glory of our art among noble spirits and gains it with the ignorant herd, which desires nothing in painting but beauty of colors, forgetting entirely the beauty and wonder of showing a flat thing as if it were in relief.” ON JUDGING A PAINTER’S WORK ¶ 483. “The first thing is that you consider the figures, if they have the relief which the place and light demand.... “The second is that the scattering, or rather distribution of the figures be made according to the way in which you wish the story to be. “The third is that the figures be alert and intent on their particular purpose.” ON THE MOVEMENTS THAT MARK THE EMOTIONS ¶ 122. “The most important thing which can be found in the theory of painting are the movements appropriate to the mental state of each being,—as desire, scorn, wrath, pity and the like.” THE STEPS IN A PAINTER’S EDUCATION ¶ 82. “Draw first designs of a good master made in the fashion of nature and not mannered; then from a relief, in the presence of a drawing made from that relief; then from a good natural object.” JUDGMENT VERSUS DEXTERITY ¶ 62. “That painter who does not doubt learns little. When the work surpasses the judgment of the worker, that worker acquires little, and when the judgment surpasses the work, that work never ceases to grow better, unless avarice prevents it.” ON USE OF MEMORY IN THE NIGHT WATCHES ¶ 67. “Also I have proved it to be of no little use to me, when you find yourself in bed in the dark, to repeat in the imagination the things studied earlier, or other things of notable sort comprised in subtle thought, and this is truly a laudable act and useful in fixing things in memory.” ON SELECTIVE IMITATION ¶ 58a. “The painter should be solitary and think over what he sees and discuss with himself, selecting the most excellent parts of the species of whatever he sees, acting after the fashion of a mirror which transmutes into as many colors as there are things what is set before it. And so doing he will seem to be himself a second nature.” ¶ 98. “Winter evenings should be used by young painters in the study of things prepared in summer, that is bring together all the nudes which you have made in the summer, and make a choice of the better limbs and bodies and practice from them and fix them in mind.” ON HIGH STANDARDS