Benjamin Robert Haydon, in his diary entry for January 14, 1825, offers up some advice for the aspiring artist: “The nipple should always be a little above the centre. In Rubens and common nature it is below, which gives a flabby, infirm look.”
Then again, Charles Dickens considered Haydon’s art to be “quite marvellous in its badness,” so…grain of salt and all that.
