Pictor in fabula

The more remote anything is supposed to be, the less finishing it ought to have. I have seen a fringe to a curtain in the background of a picture, which perhaps was half a day in painting, but might have been better done in a minute. There is often a spirit, and beauty in a quick, or perhaps an accidental management of the chalk, pen, pencil, or brush in a drawing, or painting, which ‘tis impossible to preserve if it be more finish’d ; at least ‘tis great odds but it will be lost : ‘Tis better therefore to incur the censure of the injudicious than to hazard the losing such advantages to the picture. Apelles comparing himself to Protogenes said, Perhaps he is equal, if not superior to me in some things, but I am sure I excel him in this : I know when to have done.

Nor must the attention be diverted from what ought to be principal, by anything how excellent soever in itself. Protogenes in the famous picture of Ialysus had painted a partridge so exquisitely well, that it seem’d a living creature, it was admired by all Greece; but that being most taken notice of, he defaced it entirely. That illustrious action of Mutius Scaevola’s putting his hand in the fire, after he had by mistake kill’d another instead of Porsenna, is sufficient alone to employ the mind; Polydore therefore in a capital drawing I have of him on that story (and which by the way was one of his most celebrated works) has left out the dead man; it was sufficiently known that one was kill’d, but that figure, had it been inserted, would necessarily have diverted the attention, and destroy’d that noble simplicity and unity which now appears.

Il faut prendre garde qu’aucune chose, quelque excellente qu’elle puisse être en elle-même, ne détourne l’attention du sujet principal. Protogène, dans le fameux tableau de Ialysus, avait peint une perdrix avec tant de délicatesse qu’elle paraissait vivante et faisait l’admiration de toute la Grèce ; mais, comme c’était à quoi on faisait le plus attention, il l’effaça entièrement.

Polydore, in a drawing of the same subject (which I also have) has finely expressed the excessive grief of the Virgin, by intimating it was otherwise inexpressible : her attendants discover abundance of passions, and sorrow in their faces, but hers is hid by drapery held up by both her hands : the whole figure is very composed, and quiet ; no noise, no outrage, but great dignity appears in her, suitable to her character. This thought Timanthes had in his picture of Iphigenia, which he probably took from Euripides ; as perhaps this if Polydore is owing to one, or both of them.

The hyperbolical artifice of Timanthes to express the vastness of the Cyclops is well known, and was mighlty admired by the Ancient. He made several satyrs about him as he was asleep, some were running away as frightened, others gazing at a distance, and one was measuring his thumb with his thyrsus, but seeming to do it with great caution lest he should awake. This expression was copied by Giulio Romano with a little variation.