Nothing ought to be more familiar to a Painter than Perspective; for it is the only thing that can make the Judgment correct, and will help the Fancy… - Brook Taylor

[T]he Method which ought to be follow'd in instructing a Scholar in the Executive Part of Painting; ...first have him learn the most common Effections of Practical Geometry, and the first Elements of Plain Geometry, and common Arithmetic.

In doing this he makes use of a Table of Products (...he calls Speculum Analyticum,) by which he computes the Coefficients in the new Equation for finding the Difference mentioned. This Table, I observed, was formed in the same Manner from the Equation propos'd, as the s are, taking the Root sought for the only flowing Quantity, its Fluxion for Unity, and after every Operation dividing the Product successively by the Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.

The Greatest Masters have been the most guilty... The great Occasion of this Fault, is certainly the wrong Method that generally is used in the Education of Persons to this Art: For the Young People are generally put immediately to Drawing, and when they have acquired a Facility in that, they are put to Colouring. And these things they learn by rote, and by Practice only; but are not at all instructed in any Rules of Art. By which means when they come to make any Designs of their own, tho' they... don't know how to govern their Inventions with Judgment, and become guilty of so many gross Mistakes, which prevent themselves, as well as others, from finding that Satisfaction, they otherwise would do in their Performances.