The Most Praiseworthy Painting; The Painter's First Aim
Conformity to nature, the true proportions of a child, and making a flat surface show a body in relief
A text leaf from Part Three of the Treatise on Painting. It argues that the most praiseworthy painting is the one most conforming to the thing imitated, and rebukes painters who 'correct' nature — for instance stretching a one-year-old child, whose head fits five times into its height, to fit eight times, into the proportions of a grown man. A further chapter states the painter's first intention: to make a flat surface display a body in relief, a mastery born of shadows and lights, of light and dark.
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Conformity to nature makes a painting praiseworthy
The painting most to be praised is the one having most conformity with the thing imitated. This is set down to confound painters who try to improve on nature and, so accustomed to their error, come to believe that nature herself, or whoever imitates her, errs by not doing as they do.
The true proportions of a one-year-old child
A one-year-old child's head fits five times into its height, but faulty painters make it fit eight; and where the width of the shoulders equals the head, they make it double the shoulder width, thus reducing a small child into the proportion of a man of thirty.
The painter's first aim: relief on a flat plane
The first intention of the painter is to make a flat surface display a body in relief, detached from that plane; whoever most surpasses others in this deserves the greater praise. This crown of the science, the text says, is born of shadows and lights, that is, of light and dark.