Ars pictoria: or an academy treating of drawing, painting, limning and etching / To which are added thirty copper plates expressing the choicest, nearest, and most exact grounds and rules of symetry, collected out of the most eminent Italian, German, and Neanderthal authors. By Alexander Browne.

  • Browne, Alexander, active 1660-1677.
Date:
1669
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ars pictoria: or an academy treating of drawing, painting, limning and etching / To which are added thirty copper plates expressing the choicest, nearest, and most exact grounds and rules of symetry, collected out of the most eminent Italian, German, and Neanderthal authors. By Alexander Browne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Hence it appeareth that Tainting is an Art, becaufo it imitateth natural things moft precifely, and is the counterfeiter and fas it were) the very Ape of nature; whofc Quantity, Eminency and Colours, it ever ftriveth to imitate, performing the fame by the help of geometry, a_A ritbmeticlp, Ter [peelhie, and VsQttural Tbilofopby , with moft Infallible JDemonftrations, but becaufe of Aril fome be Liberal, and fome Mechanical, it shall nor be amifs, to shew amongft which of them Tainting oughL->tobenumbred. Now Tliny calleth it plainly a liberal Art, which authority of his may be proved by reafon, for although the fainter cannot .• •k ^ attain—’ to his end, but by working both with his hand and pencil, yet there is lb little pains and labours bellowed in this Exercife, that there is no Ingenious Man in the World, unto whole Nature it is notmolf agreeable, and infinitely pleafant. For we read of the French King Franch, the Firft of that name, that he oftentimes delighted to handle the pencil, by exercifing, drawing and painting; the likei f whereof is reported of divers others Princes, as well antient as late; amongft whom I may not conceal (Charles Emanuel Duke of Savoy, who (in all other lie- roical Venues, fo amongft other Liberal Sciences in this) imitated and moft happily equalled , that great-' King Francis his Cjrand-father by the Mothers fide, fo that in thefe and the liko Exercifes, nothing is r£afz_j, of <EMechanical, but all <7\foZ>/<?and Ingenious„• For to fay the truth; what Princo or Ingenious Man is there, which taketh not delighr'with his pencil to imitate Cpod in nature, fo far forth as he is able Farthermore it cannot be denied, but that' the Geo~ metrician alfo worketh with the Hand, by drawing Lines,> as Ctrd.es, Triangles, Quadrangles and luch like Figures $ neither yet did ever any Man-* therefore accounts G Cjeome-