Between painting and sculpture I find no other difference except that the sculptor carries out his works with greater fatigue of body than the painter, and the painter carries out his works with greater fatigue of the mind. That this is true is proved thus: in making his work the sculptor, by force of arm and of blows, must wear away the marble, or other superfluous stone, that exceeds the figure enclosed within it, with a most mechanical exercise, often accompanied by great sweat mixed with dust and turned to mud, his face plastered and all floured over with marble dust so that he looks like a baker, and covered with tiny chips as though it had snowed upon him; and his dwelling dirtied and full of chips and of stone dust. The very opposite befalls the painter—speaking of excellent painters and sculptors—for the painter sits at great ease before his work, well dressed, and moves the lightest of brushes with the lovely colours; and he is adorned with such garments as please him, and his dwelling is full of fair paintings and clean, and often accompanied by music, or by readers of various and beautiful works, which, unmixed with the din of hammers or other noises, are heard with great pleasure.

Moreover, in bringing his works to completion the sculptor must, for each figure in the round, make many contours, so that grace may result from the figure on every side; and such contours are made only through the correspondence of the high and the low, which he cannot set down with truth unless he draws back to a place from which he sees the figure in profile, that is, so that the boundaries of the hollows and reliefs are seen to have their limits against the air that touches them.