578.
Historical pictures ought not to be crowded and confused with too many figures.
579.
PRECEPTS IN PAINTING.
Let you sketches of historical pictures be swift and the working out of the limbs not be carried too far, but limited to the position of the limbs, which you can afterwards finish as you please and at your leisure.
[Footnote: See Pl. XXXVIII, No. 2. The pen and ink drawing given there as No. 3 may also be compared with this passage. It is in the Windsor collection where it is numbered 101.]
580.
The sorest misfortune is when your views are in advance of your work.
581.
Of composing historical pictures. Of not considering the limbs in the figures in historical pictures; as many do who, in the wish to represent the whole of a figure, spoil their compositions. And when you place one figure behind another take care to draw the whole of it so that the limbs which come in front of the nearer figures may stand out in their natural size and place.