I have heard painters acknowledge, though in that acknowledgment no
degradation of themselves was intended, that they could do better
without Nature than with her; or, as they expressed it themselves, _that
it only put them out_. A painter with such ideas and such habits, is
indeed in a most hopeless state. _The art of seeing Nature_, or, in
other words, the art of using models, is in reality the great object,
the point to which all our studies are directed. As for the power of
being able to do tolerably well, from practice alone, let it be valued
according to its worth. But I do not see in what manner it can be
sufficient for the production of correct, excellent, and finished
pictures. Works deserving this character never were produced, nor ever
will arise, from memory alone; and I will venture to say, that an artist
who brings to his work a mind tolerably furnished with the general
principles of art, and a taste formed upon the works of good artists,
in short, who knows in what excellence consists, will, with the
assistance of models, which we will likewise suppose he has learnt the
art of using, be an over-match for the greatest painter that ever lived
who should be debarred such advantages.
_Reynolds._