Alberti On PaintingBook Two

Alberti begins Book Two by making an appeal to his readers that painting is not merely a craft, but is an intellectual art of the highest importance.

Alberti On PaintingBook Two

1. Ethos: “Painting contains a divine force” (63)“Painting was given the highest honor by our ancestors” (64)“The most noble citizens, philosophers and quite a few kings not only enjoyed painting things but also painted with their own hands” (65)

Alberti begins Book Two by making an appeal to his readers that painting is not merely a craft, but is an intellectual art of the highest importance.

How does Alberti use ancient rhetoric to make this claim about painting?

3. Pathos:Alberti appeals to the painter’s sense of pride by using triumphant vocabulary.

“Painting contributes to the most honorable delights of the soul and dignified beauty of things” (63).

“Painting contains within itself this virtue that any master painter who sees his works adored will feel himself considered another god” (64).

2. Logos:Painting is the master art because “All the smiths, sculptors, shops, and guilds are governed by the rules and art of the painter. It is scarcely possible to find any superior art which is not concerned with painting, so that what ever beauty is found can be said to be born of painting” (64).

In Book II, Alberti also establishes the Three Elements of Painting (68).

Three Elements of Painting

1. Circumspection2. Composition3. Representation of the reception of light

What is Circumspection? (68-70)

Woodcut illustration by Albrecht Dürer,1538

Three Elements of Painting

1. Circumspection2. Composition3. Representation of the reception of light

•Drawing, “guiding an outline with a line” (68).

•The veil is the important tool for this process: “Paintings which appear in good relief and a good likeness of the subject should be expected. This I do not believe can ever be done without the use of the veil” (69).

•Good circumspection (linear perspective) is what gives the painting the sense that it is a window onto a 3D world, not a 2D surface.

What is Circumspection?

What is Composition? (70-81)

Michelangelo, Creation of Adam, Sistine Chapel, 1508-1512

What is Composition?

•Composition is the “rule in painting by which the parts fit together” (70).

•Achieving powerful istoria is the key goal of composition: “the greatest work of the painter is the istoria” (70).

Michelangelo, Creation of Adam, Sistine Chapel, 1508-1512

What is the representation of the reception of light? (81-85)

•The use of black and white, and color.

•“Copiousness and variety of colors greatly add to the pleasure and fame of a painting. But I should like the [highest level of attainment] in industry and art to rest, as the learned maintain, on knowing how to use black and white” (82).

Michelangelo, Creation of Adam, Sistine Chapel, 1508-1512

Review of What Makes Good Istoria (72-81)

1. Planes2. Proportions3. Appropriateness/Dignity4. Copiousness/Variety5. Movement of the Soul

Raphael, La Belle Jardinière, 1507

What Would Alberti Say?

1. Planes2. Proportions3. Appropriateness/Dignity4. Copiousness/Variety5. Movement of the Soul

Does this painting have good istoria?

Charles le BrunEntry of Alexander into Babylon

c. 1664

What Would Alberti Say?

1. Planes2. Proportions3. Appropriateness/Dignity4. Copiousness/Variety5. Movement of the Soul

Does this painting have good istoria?

Claude Monet, Boulevard des Capucines,1873

What Would Alberti Say?

1. Planes2. Proportions3. Appropriateness/Dignity4. Copiousness/Variety5. Movement of the Soul

Does this painting have good istoria?

Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles D’Avignon,

1907

What Would Alberti Say?

1. Planes2. Proportions3. Appropriateness/Dignity4. Copiousness/Variety5. Movement of the Soul

Does this painting have good istoria?

Raoul Hassman, ABCD, 1923-24

Alberti’s Book III is a little like a “how to” book, with Alberti offering many tips to his painter readers to guide them to professional success and respect.

Alberti Book III

“I would be delighted if the painter…should be a good and learned man in liberal arts” (89).

What are the elements of the type of education Alberti thinks a painter should have?

In Book III, Alberti tells his readers what kind of education a painter should have.

Alberti Book III

Knowledge of:

GeometryPoetryRhetoricNature [Give birth in Beauty (92-93)]

What are the elements of the type of education Alberti thinks a painter should have?

Alberti Book III

• Why does Alberti say that painters should associate (hang out with) poets and orators? What part of the painter’s art will such conversation improve? (pp. 90, 91)

• The association of painters with poets and orators is key to Alberti’s humanist project of reorienting painting from the handicrafts to the liberal arts. Poetic and rhetorical training in particular will assist the painter in designing effective istorie. It also helps the painter’s “invention,”another term borrowed from classical rhetoric, where it refers to the process of finding something to say, derived from the Latin invenire, to fnd. For more on rhetorical invention, see http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Canons/Invention.htm 

Alberti Book III

• How should the painter go about making beautiful images of women?

• Alberti recommends that the painter create an ideal form of beauty by distilling beautiful elements from multiple examples. He is largely talking about representations of the female form, and he is following an important Greek art fable in recommending this procedure, which derives the ideal from (multiple) reals. A nice demonstration of the principle is available in the popular YouTube video, Women in Art. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUDIoN-_Hxs

Alberti Book III

• What is Alberti’s opinion of “copying” other paintings versus “imitating” them? What’s the difference? Why is one not encouraged, and the other a good thing? (pp. 94-95)?

• Alberti doesn’t think the artist learns much from simplying copying another artist’s painting. Copying a sculptor is more helpful because the painter has to translate from three dimensions into two. Imitation is an idea drawn from classical rhetoric and poetics. It refers not to copying, but to the systmetic borrowing of principles and techniques in a new context (with new subject matter, a different settting, etc.) For more on rhetorical imtiatio, see http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Pedagogy/Imitation.htm

Alberti Book III

• How should the painter respond to criticism? What are the main sources of criticism? (pp. 97-98)

• Criticism is a good thing. The painter can learn from other people’s responses (peer editing!!). Criticism can come from other painters, or from the public.