"I will not ask again about another doubt," said M. Lactancio, "because I dare not."
[pg 323]"Please to dare, Your Excellency," said Michael Angelo, "for as we have already sacrificed the day to painting, let us likewise offer up the night which is setting in."
He then said: "I wish finally to know what this painting that is so fine and rare must possess or what it is? Whether there must be tourneys painted, or battles, or kings and emperors covered with brocade, or well-dressed damsels, or landscapes and fields and towns? Or whether perchance it must be some angel or some saint painted and the actual form of this world? Or what must it be? Whether it must be done with gold or with silver, whether with very fine tints or with very brilliant ones?"
"Painting," M. Angelo began, "is not such a great work as any of those which you have mentioned, sir, only the painting which I so much vaunt and praise will be the imitation of some single thing amongst those which immortal God made with great care and knowledge and which He invented and painted, like to a Master: and so downwards, whether animals or birds, dispensing perfection according as each thing merits it. And in my judgment that is the excellent and divine painting which is most like and best imitates any work of immortal God, whether a human figure, or a wild and strange animal, or a simple and easy fish, or a bird of the air or any other creature. And this neither with gold nor silver nor with very fine tints, but drawn only with a pen or a pencil, or with a brush in black and white. To imitate perfectly each of these things in its species seems to me to be nothing else but to desire to imitate the work of immortal God. And yet that thing will be the most noble and perfect in the works of painting which in itself reproduced the thing which is most noble and of the greatest delicacy and knowledge. And what barbarous judge is there that cannot understand that the foot of a man is more noble than his shoe? His skin than that of the sheep from [pg 324]which his clothes are made? And who from this will proceed to find the merit and degree in everything? But I do not mean that, because a cat or a wolf is vile, the man who paints them skilfully has not as much merit as one who paints a horse, or the body of a lion, as even (as I have said above) in the simple shape of a fish there is the same perfection and proportion as in the form of man, and I may say the same of all the world itself with all its cities. But all must be ranked according to the work and study which one demands more than another, and this should be taught to some ignorant persons who have said that some painters painted faces well but that they could not paint anything else. Others have said that in Flanders they painted clothes and trees extremely well, and some have maintained that in Italy they paint the nude and symmetry or proportions better. And of others they say other things. But my opinion is that he who knows how to draw well and merely does a foot or a hand or a neck, can paint everything created in the world; and yet there are painters who paint everything there is in the world so imperfectly and so much without worth that it would be better not to do it at all. One recognises the knowledge of a great man in the fear with which he does a thing the more he understands it. And on the contrary, the ignorance of others in the foolhardy daring with which they fill pictures with what they know nothing about. There may be an excellent master who has never painted more than a single figure, and without painting anything more deserves more renown and honour than those who have painted a thousand pictures: he knows better how to do what he has not done than the others know what they do.
"And not only is this as I tell you, but there is another wonder which seems greater, namely, that if a capable man merely makes a simple outline, like a person about to begin something, he will at once be known by it—if Apelles, as [pg 325]Apelles; if an ignorant painter, as an ignorant painter. And there is no necessity for more, neither more time, nor more experience, nor examination, for eyes which understand it and for those who know that by a single straight line Apelles was distinguished from Protogenes, immortal Greek painters."
And Michael Angelo having stopped, I proceeded:
"It is also a great thing that a great master, although he may wish and work hard to do so, cannot so change or injure his hand as to paint something appearing to have been done by an apprentice, for whoever carefully examines such a thing, will find in it some sign by which he will know that it was done by the hand of a skilful person. And on the contrary, one who knows little, although he may endeavour to do the smallest thing so that it may appear to have been done by a great man, will have his trouble in vain, because immediately, when placed beside the work of a great man, it will be recognised as having been done by a prentice hand. But I should like now to know something more from Senhor Michael Angelo, to see whether he agrees with my opinion, and that is that he should tell me whether it is better to paint a work quickly or slowly?"
And he answered:
"I will tell you: to do anything quickly and swiftly is very profitable and good, and it is a gift received from the immortal God to do in a few hours what another is painting during many days; for if it were not so Pausias of Sicyon would not work so hard in order to paint in one day the perfection of a child in a picture. If he who paints quickly does not on that account paint worse than one who paints slowly, he deserves therefore much greater praise. But should he through the hurry of his hand pass the limits which it is not right to pass in art, he ought rather to paint more slowly and studiously; for an excellent and skilful man is not entitled to allow his [pg 326]taste to err through his haste when thereby some part is forgotten or neglected of the great object perfection, which is what must be always sought; hence it is not a vice to work a little slowly or even to be very slow, nor to spend much time and care on works, if this be done for more perfection; only the want of knowledge is a defect.
"And I wish to tell you, Francisco d'Ollanda, of an exceedingly great beauty in this science of ours, of which perhaps you are aware, and which I think you consider the highest, namely, that what one has most to work and struggle for in painting is to do the work with a great amount of labour and study in such a way that it may afterwards appear, however much it was laboured, to have been done almost quickly and almost without any labour, and very easily, although it was not. And this is a very excellent beauty, at times some things are done with little work in the way I have said, but very seldom: most are done by dint of hard work and appear to have been done very quickly.