Vasari on technique

Of the different kinds of Stone which are used by Architects for ornamental details, and in Sculpture for Statues; that is, Of Porphyry, Serpentine, Cipollaccio, Breccia, Granit...

§ 20. _Rusticated masonry and the Tuscan Order_(65). § 21. _The Doric Order_ (68). § 22. _A constructive device to avoid charging architraves_ (72). § 23. _The proportions and p...

§ 36. _The Nature of Sculpture_ (143). § 37. _Qualities necessary for Work in the Round_ (143). § 38. _Works of Sculpture should be treated with a view to their destined positio...

Of the manner of making Models in Wax and in Clay; how they are draped, and how they are afterwards enlarged in proportion in the Marble; how Marbles are worked with the point a...

How Models for large and small Bronze Figures are made, with the Moulds for casting them and their Armatures of iron; and how they are cast in metal and in three sorts of Bronze...

How Colours in oil painting, in fresco, or in tempera should be blended: and how the Flesh, the Draperies and all that is depicted come to be harmonized in the work in such a ma...

Of Painting on the wall in Monochrome with various earths: how objects in bronze are imitated: and of groups for Triumphal Arches or festal structures, done with powdered earths...

Of Niello, and how by this process we have Copper Prints; and how Silver is engraved to make Enamels over Bas-relief, and in like manner how Gold and Silver Plate is chased, 273

Of Wood Engraving and the method of executing it and concerning its first Inventor: how Sheets which appear to be drawn by hand and exhibit Lights and Half-tones and Shades, are...

Of the different kinds of Stone which are used by Architects for ornamental details, and in Sculpture for Statues; that is, Of Porphyry, Serpentine, Cipollaccio, Breccia, Granit...

Having thus considered all the varieties of stone, which our artificers use either for ornament or for sculpture, let us now go on to say, that when stone is used for actual bui...

The work called Rustic[108] is more stunted, and more massive than that of any other Order, it being the beginning and foundation of all. The profiles of the mouldings are simpl...

When walls have reached the point where the arches of brick or light stone or tufa have to spring, it is necessary to turn a centering with planks in a close circle, over the fr...

The fountains which the ancients made for their palaces, gardens, and other places, were of different kinds; some stood alone, with basins and vases of different sorts, others w...

There are no possible devices in any department that the ancients did not find out or at any rate try very hard to discover,—devices I mean that bring delight and refreshment to...

But since talking of particular things would make me turn aside too much from my purpose, I leave this minute consideration to the writers on architecture, and shall only say in...

Now seeing that all figures of whatever sort, whether carved in marble, cast in bronze, or wrought in plaster or wood, must be in salient work in the round, and seeing too that...

Of the manner of making Models in Wax and in Clay; how they are draped, and how they are afterwards enlarged in proportion in the Marble; how Marbles are worked with the point a...

Those works that sculptors call half reliefs[165] were invented by the ancients to make figure compositions with which to adorn flat walls, and they adopted this treatment in th...

How Models for large and small Bronze Figures are made, with the Moulds for casting them and their Armatures of iron; and how they are cast in metal and in three sorts of Bronze...

The craftsman who wishes to make medals of bronze or silver or gold after the manner of the ancients, must first with iron punches work in relief the faces of steel dies of whic...

The ancients, when they wished to make vaults or panels or doors or windows or other ornaments of white stucco, were in the habit of building a skeleton of walling either of bak...

He who wishes figures of wood to be executed in a perfect manner, must first make for them a model of wax or clay, as we have said. This sort of figure is much used in the Chris...

Seeing that Design, the parent of our three arts, Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting, having its origin in the intellect, draws out from many single things a general judgemen...

Sketches, of which mention has been made above, are in artists’ language a sort of first drawing made to find out the manner of the pose, and the first composition of the work....

Our artists have had the greatest skill in foreshortening figures, that is, in making them appear larger than they really are; a foreshortening being to us a thing drawn in shor...

How Colours in oil painting, in fresco, or in tempera should be blended: and how the Flesh, the Draperies and all that is depicted come to be harmonized in the work in such a ma...

Of all the methods that painters employ, painting on the wall is the most masterly and beautiful, because it consists in doing in a single day that which, in the other methods,...

Before the time of Cimabue and from that time onwards, works done by the Greeks in tempera on panel and occasionally on the wall have always been seen. And these old masters whe...

A most beautiful invention and a great convenience to the art of Painting, was the discovery of colouring in oil. The first inventor of it was John of Bruges in Flanders,[202] w...

When artists wish to work in oil on the dry wall two methods may be followed: first, if the wall have been whitened, either ‘a fresco’ or otherwise, it must be scraped; or if it...

In order to be able to convey pictures from one place to another men have invented the convenient method of painting on canvas, which is of little weight, and when rolled up is...

The courage of our pictorial artists has gone on increasing, so that colouring in oil, besides the use made of it on the wall, can when they desire be employed also for painting...

Of Painting on the wall in Monochrome with various earths; how objects in bronze are imitated; and of groups for Triumphal Arches or festal structures, done with powdered earths...

Painters have another sort of picture which is drawing and painting both together. This is called sgraffito; it serves only for ornament on the façades of houses and palaces, an...

The grotesque is a kind of free and humorous picture produced by the ancients for the decoration of vacant spaces in some position where only things placed high up are suitable....

It was truly a most beautiful secret and an ingenious investigation—that discovery of the method of beating gold into such thin leaves, that for every thousand pieces beaten to...

We have spoken sufficiently above, in the sixth chapter on Architecture, of the nature of mosaic and how it is made, and, adding here just so much as really refers to pictures,...

To the mosaic in small pieces our modern masters have added another kind of mosaic, that of marbles fitted together to counterfeit painted groups in monochrome. This art takes i...

How easy a thing it is to add some new discovery to the inventions of the past, is clearly shown to us, not only by the aforesaid fitted pavement, which without doubt comes from...

Formerly the ancients were in the habit of filling in their windows, but only in the houses of great men, or of those at least of some importance, in such a manner as to prevent...

Of Niello,[279] and how by means of this process we have Copper Prints; and how Silver is engraved to make Enamels over bas-relief, and in like manner how Gold and Silver Plate...

In imitation of the ancients, the moderns have revived a species of inlaying in metals, with sunk designs in gold or silver, making surfaces either flat or in half or low relief...

Of Wood Engraving and the method of executing it and concerning its first Inventor: how Sheets which appear to be drawn by hand and exhibit Lights and Half-tones and Shades are...

school from which proceeded Fra Giovanni of Verona, executed at S. Domenico in Bologna a series of works in tarsia that represent the furthest development in a pictorial directi...

contains a good critical notice of the decorative work at the Laurentian Library. The windows, which were not executed till long after the death of Clement VII whose name appear...