Michelangelo: Some Advice

"Sometimes it occurs that a perfect work is made with little effort; but this is a rare thing: it is easier to execute it with the power of hard work and make it seem to have been executed quickly."

"I would prefer a mediocre and fast painter to one of the same value or little better who paints slowly."

"I shall tell you [Francisco de Hollanda]; to make any work with dexterity and rapidity is useful and good, and the power of painting in a few hours that which others paint in many days is a gift of immortal God, and were this not the case, Pausias of Sicyon could not have worked so as to achieve painting a picture with the figure of a youth perfectly in a day. He who paints rapidly without painting less well than those who paint slowly merits high praise. But if with his speed of hand he passes certain limits that are not permitted in art, then he should, rather, paint more studiedly and slowly because an excellent and praiseworthy man should not let himself be deceived by the taste of his dexterity when it in some measure makes him descend from that great chariot, perfection, upon which he must always ride. Thus it is not a bad thing to paint a bit slowly, or if necessary to spend a great deal of time developing the works, if this is done to perfect them; the only and true defect is not knowing.

And I wish to tell you, Francisco de Hollanda, a great secret of this our science, one that perhaps you do not ignore and keep as the highest, which is: as much as you have to work and study in painting, with great expenditure of time and effort, so much the finished work must appear that it does not seem so worked but painted almost in haste and without fatigue, and very lightly, even though it is not really so. This is excellent advice and an excellent rule. "

– Quotes by Michelangelo Buonarroti from the book "A Lesson in Anatomy." James Beck. Viking Press NY. 1975