"I was extremely disillusioned and discouraged, when I suddenly
noticed in a Paris newspaper that a mathematician, a professor at the National
Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, had held a lecture on geometry and
the fine arts. I decided to go to him for an explanation of Durer's mysterious
geometry. I was received very courteously
by Monsieur RAOUL BRICARD (the mathematician), author of books
on descriptive geometry and perspective, and examiner at the Polytechnical
School. In no time he understood the problem. "This is descriptive geometry,"
he said, "that Durer elaborated before Monge; do you know anything about
descriptive geometry?" "Absolutely nothing at all," I had to reply,
and was really terribly ashamed and humiliated. ... The result was that
he offered to see me several times a week to reveal the secret of descriptive
geometry, especially that part of it that concerned conjugated orthogonal
projections;...." (p. 212) "Having become quite accomplished at using
conjugated orthogonal projections, one day I gave Raoul Bricard, my
professor, a large drawing of a vertical and horizontal projection of
a human head and torso. Next to the full-face and profile projections,
I had drawn the same projection on a horizontal plane to which I had imposed
a 25-degree rotation, one to the right and one to the left.
 Accomplishing the consequent operation on a vertical plane, my figure
was three-quarters turned, and full of life.
My professor was completely amazed and enthusiastic
and said quite frankly, "I taught you these things just to appease you,
but thought that it was a matter of an artist's peculiarity,
not that you would put them to use." The most amusing part was that
I was surprised by this too. It was a bit like a doll manufacturer who,
all of a sudden, sees one of his creations jump up, walk,
and talk; Gepetto, the carpenter, who feels his wig being pulled by
Pinocchio, while he is still in the act of carving him. In fact,
the expression of life that springs out of certain forms is extraordinary.
These are the ones exclusively in our souls, and from pure geometry
they pass to an even more distant imitation of reality.
They provoke intense, vivacious emotions. I then began to understand
how certain great masters of the past, the Greeks, for example,
were able to construct according to numbers or geometric shapes,
and thereby to express life." (p. 222) "The Life of a Painter",
Princeton University Press, 1995, by the Italian cubist and futurist painter,
Gino Severini.