§ 40 Artists Must Depend on Their Judgement Rather Than on the Measuring Rule
After all the eye must give the final judgement, for, even though an object be most carefully measured, if the eye remain offended it will not cease on that account to censure it.
Let me repeat that although measurement exercises a just control in enlarging the figure so that the height and breadth, kept according to rule, may make the work well proportioned and beautiful, the eye nevertheless must decide where to take away and where to add as it sees defect in the work, till the due proportion, grace, design and perfection are attained, so that the work may be praised in all its parts by every competent authority. And that statue or figure which shall have these qualities will be perfect in beauty, in design and in grace. Such figures we call figures ‘in the round,’ provided that all the parts appear finished, just as one sees them in a man, when walking round him; the same holds good of all the details which depend on the whole. But it seems to me high time to come to the particulars of the subject.