De stylo.--Pliny.--In picture light is required no less than shadow;
so in style, height as well as humbleness. But beware they be not
too humble, as Pliny pronounced of Regulus's writings. You would
think them written, not on a child, but by a child. Many, out of
their own obscene apprehensions, refuse proper and fit words--as
occupy, Nature, and the like; so the curious industry in some, of
having all alike good, hath come nearer a vice than a virtue.
De progres. picturae. {93} Picture took her feigning from poetry;
from geometry her rule, compass, lines, proportion, and the whole
symmetry. Parrhasius was the first won reputation by adding
symmetry to picture; he added subtlety to the countenance, elegancy
to the hair, love-lines to the face, and by the public voice of all
artificers, deserved honour in the outer lines. Eupompus gave it
splendour by numbers and other elegancies. From the optics it drew
reasons, by which it considered how things placed at distance and
afar off should appear less; how above or beneath the head should
deceive the eye, &c. So from thence it took shadows, recessor,
light, and heightnings.
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