¶ 67. “Also I have proved it to be of no little use to me, when you find yourself in bed in the dark, to repeat in the imagination the things studied earlier, or other things of notable sort comprised in subtle thought, and this is truly a laudable act and useful in fixing things in memory.”
On Selective Imitation
¶ 58a. “The painter should be solitary and think over what he sees and discuss with himself, selecting the most excellent parts of the species of whatever he sees, acting after the fashion of a mirror which transmutes into as many colors as there are things what is set before it. And so doing he will seem to be himself a second nature.”
¶ 98. “Winter evenings should be used by young painters in the study of things prepared in summer, that is bring together all the nudes which you have made in the summer, and make a choice of the better limbs and bodies and practice from them and fix them in mind.”
On High Standards
¶ 59. “If you painter will seek to please the first painters, you will make your pictures well, because they alone can guide you truthfully, but if you wish to please those who are not masters, your pictures will have few foreshortenings and little relief or alert movement, and thereby you will fail in that part in which painting is held to be an excellent art, that is in giving an effect of relief where there is nothing in relief.”
On Avoiding Harsh Shadows and Sunlight Effects
¶ 87. “The light cut off from the shade too clearly is greatly blamed by painters. Hence to avoid such a fault, if you paint bodies in the open country, you will not make the figures as lighted by the sun, but imagine some sort of mist or transparent clouds to be interposed between the object and the sun, whence, since the figure is not emphasized by the sunlight, the demarcations of light and shade will not be emphasized.”
On the Most Pleasing Light
¶ 138. “If you have a court yard that can be covered as you wish with a linen awning, that will be a good light; or when you wish to draw anyone, draw him in bad weather, towards nightfall, and make the sitter stand with his back to one of the walls of this court. In the streets set your mind towards nightfall on the faces of the men and women, in bad weather, how much grace and sweetness appears in them.”