The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard: but if he will apply himself to learn from the objects of nature he will produce good results. This we see was the case with the painters who came after the time of the Romans, for they continually imitated each other, and from age to age their art steadily declined.

The painter strives and competes with nature.

A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.

The vivacity and brightness of colors in a landscape will never bear any comparison with a landscape in nature when it is illumined by the sun, unless the painting is placed in such a position that it will receive the same light from the sun as does the landscape.

The frog instantly dies when the spinal cord is pierced; and previous to this it lived without head without heart or any bowels or intestines orskin; and here therefore it would seem lies the foundation of move- ment and life.

Then you shall make a discourse on the hands of each animal in order to show how they vary, as in the bear in which the ligaments ofthe tendons of the toes of the foot are connected over the neck of the foot.