CXXIII

My opinion is that he who knows how to draw well and merely does a foot

or a hand or a neck, can paint everything created in the world; and yet

there are painters who paint everything there is in the world so

impatiently and so much without worth that it would be better not to do

it at all. One recognises the knowledge of a great man in the fear with

which he does a thing the more he understands it; and, on the contrary,

the ignorance of others in the foolhardy daring with which they fill

pictures with what they know nothing about. There may be an excellent

master who has never painted more than a single figure, and without

painting anything more deserves more renown and honour than those who

have painted a thousand pictures: he knows better how to do what he has

not done than the others know what they do.

_Michael Angelo._

The mind of the artist · 第 141 / 298 题