Paragone: The Sculptor's Errors and the Mind of Painting
Removing too much betrays the unskilled; sculpture's endurance is nature's virtue, not the sculptor's.
Continuing the paragone, Leonardo dismisses the idea that an irreparable slip of the chisel makes a work more worthy, insisting that a true master who commands his measures never removes what he should not. He calls painting an art of subtle speculation and marvellous artifice of which sculpture is deprived, and argues that sculpture's greater permanence is a virtue of its material rather than a glory of the sculptor. A marginal note directs the reader to the rest of the chapter on folio 28. The heading of chapter 39, on the sculptor and painter, begins at the foot of the page.
On this page
Removing too much betrays an unskilled master
To the sculptor's complaint that material once cut away cannot be restored, Leonardo replies that one who removes too much understands little and is no master, since a true master who commands the measures will not remove what he should not. The fault therefore lies with the operator, not with the material.
Painting's subtle speculation against sculpture's brief discourse
Painting is called an art of marvellous artifice and most subtle speculation, of which sculpture is wholly deprived, being of most brief discourse. The endurance of sculpture, Leonardo adds, is a virtue of the material chosen by nature and not a glory the sculptor may claim for himself.