Plate XVII.
Bust of Patroclus.
Another view of the bust which is figured in the fifth plate of this work.
__________________
It has often been said, and has grown into a proverb, that there is no royal road to learning of any kind. But the proverb is fallacious: for there is, assuredly, a royal road to Drawing; and one of these days, when more known and better explored, it will probably be much frequented. Already sundry amateurs have laid down the pencil and armed themselves with chemical solutions and with camerae obscurae. Those amateurs especially, and they are not few, who find the rules of perspective difficult to learn and to apply–and who moreover have the misfortune to be lazy–prefer to use a method which dispenses with all that trouble. And even accomplished artists now avail themselves of an invention which delineates in a few moments the almost endless details of Gothic architecture which a whole day would hardly suffice to draw correctly in the ordinary manner.