§ 52 Pictorial or Perspective Reliefs
In the manner of a picture this kind of relief sets forth first the whole of the principal figures, either in half round or still greater salience, as may happen, the figures on the second plane partly hidden by the first, and those on the third by the second, just as living people are seen when they are assembled and crowded together. In this kind of half relief, for the sake of perspective, they make the most distant figures low, some of the heads indeed extremely low, and no less so the houses and scenery which are the objects most remote. By none has this species of half relief ever been better executed, with more observation, or with its figures diminished and spaced one from the other more correctly than by the ancients;166 for they, who were students of the truth and gifted artists, never made the figures in such compositions with ground that is foreshortened or seems to run away, but placed them with their feet resting on the moulding beneath them. In contrast to this, some of our own moderns, over eager, have, in their compositions in half relief, made their principal figures stand on the plane which is in low relief and recedes, and the middle figures on the same plane in such a position that, as they stand, they do not rest the feet as firmly as is natural, whence it not infrequently happens that the points of the feet of those figures that turn their backs actually touch the shins of their own legs, so violent is the foreshortening. Such things are seen in many modern works, and even in the gates of the Baptistry and in many examples of that period. Therefore half reliefs of this character are incorrect, because, if the foremost figures project half out of the stone while others have to be placed behind them, there must be a rule for the retiring and diminution; the feet of the figures have to be on the ground, so that the ground may come forward in front as required by the eye and the rule in things painted. Accordingly the figures must be gradually reduced in proportion as they recede till they reach the flattened and low relief; and because of the harmony required it is difficult to carry out the work perfectly seeing that in relief the feet and heads are foreshortened. Great skill in design therefore is necessary if the artist wish to exhibit his ability in this art. The same degree of perfection is demanded for figures in clay or wax as for those worked in bronze and marble. Therefore of all the works which have the qualities that I indicate the half reliefs may be considered most beautiful and most highly praised by experienced artists.