On Painting (Penguin Classics)
by Leon Battista Alberti
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Book Summary Information
Author: Leon Battista AlbertiEditor: Martin Kemp
Edition: Paperback
Audio: Italian (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1991-07-02
ISBN: 0140433317
Number of pages: 112
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780140433319
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Book Reviews of On Painting (Penguin Classics)
Book Review: Charming little book with insights into perspective painting
Summary: 5 Stars
Book I is a leisurely introduction to the basic geometrical principles of painting. "I usually give my friends the following rule: the more rays are employed in seeing, the greater the quantity seen will appear. ... Furthermore, the extrinsic rays, which hold on like teeth to the whole of the outline, form an enclosure around the entire surface like a cage. This is why they say that vision takes place by means of a pyramid of rays. ... We must now speak of the median rays. These are the mass of rays which is contained within the pyramid and enclosed by the extrinsic rays ... from their contact with the surface to the vertex of the pyramid they are so tinged with the varied colours and lights they find there, that at whatever point they were interrupted, they would show the same light they had absorbed and the same colour. We know for a fact about these median rays that over a long distance they weaken and loose they sharpness. The reason why this occurs has been discovered: as they pass through the air, these and all other visual rays are laden and imbued with lights and colors; but the air too is also endowed with a certain density, and in consequence the rays get tired and lose a good part of their burden as they penetrate the atmosphere. So it is rightly said that the greater the distance, the more obscure and dimmed the surface appears. ... We call the centric ray the one which alone strikes the quantity in such a way that the adjacent angles on all sides are equal. As for the properties of the centric ray, it is of all the rays undoubtedly the most keen and vigourous. It is also true that a quantity will never appear larger than when the centric ray rests upon it. ... [A]s it is only a single surface of a panel or a wall, on which the painter strives to represent many surfaces contained within a single pyramid, it will be necessary for his visual pyramid to be cut at some point, so that the painter by drawing and colouring can express whatever outlines and colour that intersection represents. Consequently the viewers of a painted surface appear to be looking at a particular intersection of the pyramid. ... Painters prove this when they move away from what they are painting and stand further back, seeking to find by the light of nature the vertex of the pyramid from which they know everything can be more correctly viewed."
Now the principles of perspective and the costruzione legittima. "Let me tell you what I do when I am painting. ... I decide how large I wish the human figures in the painting to be. I divide the height of this man into three parts. ... With this measure I divide the bottom line ... into as many parts as it will hold. Then I establish a point ... wherever I wish; and as it occupied the place where the centric ray strikes, I shall call this the centric point. The suitable position for this centric point is no higher from the base line than the height of the man ... for in this way both the viewers and the objects in the painting will seem to be on the same plane. Having placed the centric point, I draw lines from it to each of the divisions on the base line. ... [A]s regards the successive [parallels of a tiled floor] I observe the following method. I have a drawing surface [on the canvas margin] on which I describe a single straight line, and this i divide in parts like those into which the base line of the rectangle is divided. Then I place a point above this line, directly over one end of it, at the same height as the centric point ... and from this point I draw lines to each of the divisions of the line. Then I determine the distance I want between the eye of the spectator and the painting, and, having established the position of the intersection at this distance, I effect the intersection with ... a perpendicular. ... This perpendicular will give me, at the places it cuts the other lines, the measure of what the distance should be in each case between the transverse equidistant lines of the pavement. ... A proof of whether they are correctly drawn will be if a single straight line forms the diagonal of connected quadrangles in the pavement. ... When I have carefully done these things, I draw a line across, ... which ... passes through the centric point. This line is for me a limit or boundary, which no quantity exceeds that is not higher than the eye of the spectator ... This is why men depicted standing in the parallel [to the horizon] furthest away are a great deal smaller than those in the nearer ones---a phenomenon which is clearly demonstrated by nature herself, for in churches we see the heads of men walking about, moving at more or less the same height, while the feet of those further away may correspond to the knee-level of those in front."
Book II also has some concrete tricks in it, most notably the veil. "Circumscription is the process of delineating the external outlines on the painting. ... [T]o do this well, I believe nothing more convenient can be found than the veil ... whose usage I was the first to discover. It is like this: a veil loosely woven of fine thread ... divided up by thicker threads into as many parallel square sections as you like, and stretched on a frame. I set this up between the eye and the object to be represented, so that the visual pyramid passes through the loose weave of the veil."
But most of all Book II discusses aesthetic principles, most of which are amusing but quite trivial, e.g. "if you painted centaurs in an uproar at dinner, it would be absurd amid this violent commotion for one of them to be lying asleep from drinking wine", and some of which are more interesting, e.g. "those painters who use white immoderately and black carelessly, should be strongly condemned. It would be a good thing if white and black were made from those pearls Cleopatra dissolved in vinegar, so that painters would become as mean as possible with them, for their works would then be both more agreeable and nearer the truth."
There is a short Book III with more mundane advice along these lines: "It so happens that, as rich men are often moved by kindness more than by expert knowledge of art, they will give money to one man who is especially modest and good, and spurn another who is more skilled but perhaps intemperate. For this reason it behoves the artist to be particularly attentive to his morals, especially to good manners and amiability, whereby he may obtain the good-will of others, which is a firm protection against poverty, and money, which is an excellent aid to the perfection of his art."
Summary of On Painting (Penguin Classics)
Artist, architect, poet and philosopher, Leon Battista Alberti revolutionized the history of art with his theories of perspective in On Painting (1435). Inspired by the order and beauty inherent in nature, his groundbreaking work sets out the principles of distance, dimension and proportion; instructs the painter on how to use the rules of composition, representation, light and colour to create work that is graceful and pleasing to the eye; and stipulates the moral and artistic pre-requisites of the successful painter. On Painting had an immediate and profound influence on Italian Renaissance artists including Ghiberti, Fra Angelico and Veneziano and on later figures such as Leonardo da Vinci, and remains a compelling theory of art.General Books
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