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directed to do it. Their drawings resemble the model only in the
attitude. They change the form according to their vague and uncertain
ideas of beauty, and make a drawing rather of what they think the figure
ought to be than of what it appears. I have thought this the obstacle
that has stopped the progress of many young men of real genius; and I
very much doubt whether a habit of drawing correctly what we see will not
give a proportionable power of drawing correctly what we imagine. He who
endeavours to copy nicely the figure before him not only acquires a habit
of exactness and precision, but is continually advancing in his knowledge
of the human figure; and though he seems to superficial observers to make
a slower progress, he will be found at last capable of adding (without
running into capricious wildness) that grace and beauty which is
necessary to be given to his more finished works, and which cannot be got
by the moderns, as it was not acquired by the ancients, but by an
attentive and well-compared study of the human form.

What I think ought to enforce this method is, that it has been the
practice (as may be seen by their drawings) of the great masters in the
art. I will mention a drawing of Raffaelle, "The Dispute of the
Sacrament," the print of which, by Count Cailus, is in every hand. It
appears that he made his sketch from one model; and the habit he had of
drawing exactly from the form before him appears by his making all the
figures with the same cap, such as his model then happened to wear; so
servile a copyist was this great man, even at a time when he was allowed
to be at his highest pitch of excellence.

I have seen also academy figures by Annibale Caracci, though he was often
sufficiently licentious in his finished works, drawn with all the
peculiarities of an individual model.

This scrupulous exactness is so contrary to the practice of the
academies, that it is not without great deference that I beg leave to
recommend it to the consideration of the visitors, and submit it to them,
whether the neglect of this method is not one of the reasons why students
so often disappoint expectation, and being more than boys at sixteen,
become less than men at thirty.

In short, the method I recommend can only be detrimental when there are
but few living forms to copy; for then students, by always drawing from
one alone, will by habit be taught to overlook defects, and mistake
deformity for beauty. B