"But Plutarch says in his book De Liberis educandis, that a poor painter showed Apelles what he was doing, telling him: 'This painting has just this moment been done by my hand,' Apelles answered: 'Even if you had not said so I should have known that it was by your hand and that it was done quickly, and I am surprised that you do not do many of them every day.'
"However I should prefer (if one had either to err or be correct) to err or be correct quickly rather than slowly, and that my painter should rather paint diligently and a little less well than one who is very slow, painting better, but not much better.
"But now I wish to know this of you, M. Francisco, to see whether you agree with my opinion, namely, that you should tell me if there are many different ways of painting almost of equal goodness; which of them will you consider the worst, or which of them are bad?"
[pg 327]"That is still a greater question," I replied, "Senhor Michael, than the one I put to you; but just as Mother Nature has produced in one place men and animals, and in another place men and animals, all made according to one art and proportion, and yet very different to each other, so it is, almost miraculously, with the hands of painters, as you will find many great men each of whom paints in his own manner and style men and women and animals, their styles greatly differing, and yet they all of them retain the same proportions and principles; and yet all these different styles may be good and worthy of being praised in their differences. For in Rome Polidoro, a painter, had a very different style to that of Balthazar, of Siena; M. Perino different from that of Julius, of Mantua; Martorino did not resemble Parmesano; Cavalliere Tiziano in Venice was softer than Leonardo da Vinci; the sprightliness of Raphael of Urbino and his softness does not resemble the work of Bastiāo Veneziano; your work does not resemble any other; nor is my small talent similar to any other. And although the famous ones whom I have mentioned have the light and shade, the design and the colours different from each other, they are none the less all great and famous men, and each distinguished by his difference and style, and their works very worthy of being valued at almost the same price, because each of them worked to imitate Nature and perfection in the manner that he considered to be the most proper, and his own, and in accordance with his idea and intention."
And this said, we rose and went away as it was already night.
THE WORKS OF MICHAEL ANGELO
The Rape of Deianira, or the Battle of the Centaurs, a bas-relief, 1490.
Casa Buonarroti, Florence.
The Angel of the Shrine of Saint Dominic, a marble statuette, 1494.
San Domenico, Bologna.