The Sculptor's Excuse: Painting versus Sculpture
Leonardo answers the sculptor's defences in the paragone of the arts
A chapter of the paragone in which Leonardo rebuts the sculptor's excuses for the difficulty of his art. He argues that a true master removes marble a little at a time and does not err, that a figure's infinite outlines reduce to just two well-proportioned halves, and that the sculptor is aided free of charge by natural light and shade, whereas the painter must generate light and shade himself by long study. The page is a single column of Melzi's clean italic transcription with no drawing.
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The sculptor who removes too much marble is no master
To the sculptor's plea that, unlike the painter, he cannot repair an error once too much marble is cut away, Leonardo answers that whoever removes more than he should is no master, since a master is defined as one who has true knowledge of his craft. When the sculptor blames a hidden flaw in the stone, he is likened to a painter whose panel breaks.
Infinite outlines reduce to two half-figures
The sculptor claims he must make infinite figures because a continuous body has infinite outlines. Leonardo replies that these reduce to two half-figures, one from the middle backward and one from the middle forward, which, well proportioned and given their due relief, account for every aspect, just as a vase turned on a lathe shows itself from infinite viewpoints.
Light and shade the painter must generate himself
Leonardo notes that natural accidents do not continually assist the sculptor. That aid, free of deceit, is the light and dark which painters call lume and ombra; nature supplies it to sculpture with the same quantities, qualities and proportions, whereas the painter must produce it himself with the greatest study.