After this in the following summer you should select some one who is
well grown and who has not been brought up in doublets, and so may
not be of stiff carriage, and make him go through a number of agile
and graceful actions; and if his muscles do not show plainly within
the outlines of his limbs that does not matter at all. It is enough
that you can see good attitudes and you can correct [the drawing of]
the limbs by those you studied in the winter.
[Footnote: An injunction to study in the evening occurs also in No.
524.]
On the productive power of minor artists (498-501).
498.
He is a poor disciple who does not excel his master.
499.
Nor is the painter praiseworthy who does but one thing well, as the
nude figure, heads, draperies, animals, landscapes or other such
details, irrespective of other work; for there can be no mind so
inept, that after devoting itself to one single thing and doing it
constantly, it should fail to do it well.
[Footnote: In MANZI'S edition (p. 502) the painter G. G. Bossi
indignantly remarks on this passage. "_Parla il Vince in questo
luogo come se tutti gli artisti avessero quella sublimita d'ingegno
capace di abbracciare tutte le cose, di cui era egli dotato"_ And he
then mentions the case of CLAUDE LORRAIN. But he overlooks the fact
that in Leonardo's time landscape painting made no pretensions to
independence but was reckoned among the details (_particulari_,
lines 3, 4).]
500.