Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/354

342 St. Mark looked thus we may safely believe what he has written.” Being once shown the drawing of a boy who was recommended to his favour, and told, by way of excuse for defects, that he had not been long learning, he answered, ‘‘It is easy to perceive that.” A similar remark escaped him when a painter who had depicted a Pieta was found to have succeeded badly; “It is indeed a pity,” observed the master.

When Michelagnolo heard that Sebastiano Veniziano was to paint a Monk in the Chapel of San Pietro a Montorio, he declared that this would spoil the work; and being asked wherefore, replied, that “as the monks had spoiled the world, which was so large, it could not be surprising that they should spoil that Chapel which was so small.” A painter had executed a work with great labour, and spent much time over it, but acquired a good sum when it was finished; being asked what he thought of the artist, Michelagnolo replied, “While he is labouring to become a rich man, he will always continue a poor painter.” A friend of his who had taken orders, arrived in Rome, wearingt he garb of a pilgrim, and meeting Michelagnolo, saluted him, but the latter pretended not to know him, compelling the monk to tell his name at length, when Michelagnolo, feigning surprise at his dress, remarked, “Oh, you really have a fine aspect; if you were but as good within as you seem without, it would be well for your soul.” The same monk had recommended a friend of his own to Michelagnolo, who had given him a statue to execute, and the monk then begged him to give something more; this also our artist good-naturedly did, but it was now found that the pretended friend had made these requests only in the certainty that they would not be granted, and suffered his disappointment to be seen; whereupon Michelagnolo declared that such gutter-minded men were his abhorrence; and, continuing to take his metaphors from architecture, he added, “channels that have two mouths rarely act well.”

Being asked his opinion of an artist who, having copied the most renowned antique marble statues and imitated the same, then boasted that he had surpassed the ancients, he made answer to this effect:—“He who walks on the traces of another is but little likely to get before him; and an artist who cannot do good of himself, is but poorly able to