Leon Battista Alberti
Leon Battista Alberti
Leon Battista Albertiwas an Italian humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher and cryptographer; he epitomised the Renaissance Man. Although he is often characterized as an "architect" exclusively, as James Beck has observed, "to single out one of Leon Battista's 'fields' over others as somehow functionally independent and self-sufficient is of no help at all to any effort to characterize Alberti's extensive explorations in the fine arts." Alberti's life was described in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Most Excellent...
NationalityItalian
ProfessionArchitect
Date of Birth14 February 1404
CountryItaly
What is painting but the act of embracing, by means of art, the surface of the pool?
Philosophers say that nothing can be seen that is neither illuminated nor colored.
The greatest work of an artist is the history of a painting.
A person can do anything if they only will it strongly enough.
Errors accumulate in the sketch and compound in the model.
It was never shameful to learn from any teacher things that are useful to know.
The city is like a great house, and the house in its turn a small city.
There is no art which has not had its beginnings in things full of errors. Nothing is at the same time both new and perfect.
Men are themselves the source of their own fortune and misfortune.
The function of the painter is to render... the visible surface so that at a certain distance... and position it appears... like the body itself.
It is very rarely granted even to Nature herself to produce anything absolutely perfect in every part.
The Arts are learnt by reason and method; they are mastered by practice.
A man can do all things if he will.
I would have artists be convinced that the supreme skill and art in painting consists in knowing how to use black and white... because it is light and shade that make objects appear in relief.