narrow practice that a genius or mastery in the art is acquired. A man
is as little likely to form a true idea of the perfection of the art by
studying a single artist as he would be of producing a perfectly
beautiful figure by an exact imitation of any individual living model.

And as the painter, by bringing together in one piece those beauties
which are dispersed amongst a great variety of individuals, produces a
figure more beautiful than can be found in nature, so that artist who can
unite in himself the excellences of the various painters, will approach
nearer to perfection than any one of his masters.

He who confines himself to the imitation of an individual, as he never
proposes to surpass, so he is not likely to equal, the object of
imitation. He professes only to follow, and he that follows must
necessarily be behind.

We should imitate the conduct of the great artists in the course of their
studies, as well as the works which they produced, when they were
perfectly formed. Raffaelle began by imitating implicitly the manner of
Pietro Perugino, under whom he studied; so his first works are scarce to
be distinguished from his master's; but soon forming higher and more
extensive views, he imitated the grand outline of Michael Angelo. He
learnt the manner of using colours from the works of Leonardo da Vinci
and Fratre Bartolomeo: to all this he added the contemplation of all the
remains of antiquity that were within his reach, and employed others to
draw for him what was in Greece and distant places. And it is from his
having taken so many models that he became himself a model for all
succeeding painters, always imitating, and always original.

If your ambition therefore be to equal Raffaelle, you must do as