work of Titian or Rembrandt or Leonardo or Rubens or any other mighty
artist of ripe epochs. Yet we find both of them illustrating the
licentious legends of antiquity, turning from the Virgin to Amymone and
Leda, from Christ to Apollo and Hercules. By their action and example
neither joins either the Reformation or the Renascence in so far as
these movements may be considered antagonistic; nor did they find it
inconsistent to acknowledge their debt to Greece and Rome, even while
accepting the gift of Jesus' example as freely as it was offered.

Not only does Duerer insist on the necessity of a certain consonancy
between the surrounding influences and the artist's capacity, which
should be both called forth and relieved by the interchange of rivalry
with instruction, of seclusion with music or society, but the process
which Jesus made the central one of his religion is put forward as
essential; he must form himself on a precedent example. I have already
quoted from Reynolds at length on this point.

I will merely add here some notes from another MS. fragment of Duerer's
bearing on the same points.

He that would be a painter must have a natural turn thereto.

Love and delight therein are better teachers of the Art of Painting than
compulsion is.

If a man is to become a really great painter he must be educated thereto
from his very earliest years. He must copy much of the work of good
artists until he attain a free hand.

To paint is to be able to portray upon a flat surface any visible thing