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
Errors accumulate in the sketch and compound in the model.
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.
A common error of ignorance is to maintain that what one does not know does not exist.
Men can do all things if they will.
A man can do all things if he but wills them.
Beauty: the adjustment of all parts proportionately so that one cannot add or subtract or change without impairing the harmony of the whole.
Nothing overshadows truth so much as authority.
I shall praise those faces which seem to project out of the picture as though they were sculptured, and I shall censure those faces in which I see no art but that of outline.
I prefer you to take as your model a mediocre sculpture rather than an excellent painting, for from painted objects we train our hand only to make a likeness, whereas from sculptures we learn to represent both likeness and correct incidence of light.
Perhaps the artist who seeks dignity above all in his 'historia', ought to represent very few figures; for as paucity of words imparts majesty to a prince, provided histhoughts and orders are understood, so the presence of only the strictly necessary numbers of bodies confers dignity on a picture.
Practice by drawing things large, as if equal in representation and reality. In small drawings every large weakness is easily hidden; in the large, the smallest weakness is easily seen.
I will never tire of recommending the custom, practiced by the best architects, of preparing not only drawings and sketches, but also models of wood or any other material. These... enable us to examine... the work as a whole... and, before continuing any further, to estimate the likely trouble and expense.
Buildings have been made because of man.
The picture will have charm when each color is very unlike the one next to it.