Decorum in Painting: Rank, Age, and Sex of the Figures
Trattato della pittura: fitness of act, bearing and place, and not mixing ages and sexes without cause
A text page of the Treatise on Painting on decorum in composition. The painter is told to observe the fitness of act, bearing and place, giving a king grave beard, dress and adorned setting with reverent bystanders, while the base are shown unadorned and abject. Further chapters warn against making a lord act like a servant or a woman like a man, and against mixing many children with old men, or youths with infants, unless the subject requires it. The sheet is text only, with no drawings.
On this page
Acts must suit a figure's rank, age and sex
It is not fitting, by place or act, that a lord behave like a servant, nor an infant like an adolescent, but each be equal to his kind — the old man scarcely holding himself up. The peasant must not take the act of a noble, nor the strong that of the weak, nor harlots the acts of honest women, nor males those of females.
On the observance of decorum
Observe decorum — the fitness of act, bearing and place — being circumspect as to the dignity or baseness of what you figure. A king should have grave beard, air and dress, an adorned setting and reverent bystanders in worthy habit; the base should be unadorned, feigning and abject, with bystanders of like presumptuous acts, and all the limbs answering to the composition.
Of the age of the figures: do not mix without cause
Do not mix a quantity of children with as many old men, nor youths with infants, nor women with men, unless the subject you wish to figure binds them together mingled. The heading 'The quality of men in the compositions of histories' opens at the foot of the page, continuing overleaf.