Albertis De Pictura 1435 Humanities Core Course Winter

Alberti’s De Pictura (1435) Humanities Core Course Winter 2008, “Making” Instructor: Nicole Woods

Leon Battista Alberti (1404 -1472) • Son of an exiled Florentine merchant banker • Received his doctorate in canon and civil law from the University of Bologna, 1428 • In 1434, the exile of his family was lifted and Alberti returned to Florence, becoming familiar with the work of Brunelleschi, Donatello, Masaccio, and Ghiberti • He wrote De Pictura in 1435 in Latin, then in 1436 he composed an Italian (Tuscan) version

As Professor Lupton noted, Alberti was the quintessential “Renaissance Man”– a painter, architect, scholar of antiquity, who famously instructed the painter to “regard” the rectangular frame of the painting as an open window (aperta finestra).

We continue to see the influence of this metaphor, even in 20 th century Surrealist painting… René Magritte, The Human Condition, 1933, oil on canvas

And in Microsoft’s conception of the ‘window’ scape of computation…

A few Florentine artists mentioned in Alberti’s text: Filippo Brunelleschi, Dome of Florence Cathedral, 1420 -1461 Masaccio, The Holy Trinity, 1426 -27 Santa Maria Novella, Florence, fresco

And influenced by Alberti’s text: Fra Angelico, San Marco Altarpiece, 1440, commissioned by Cosimo and Lorenzo de’Medici San Marco, Florence, tempera on panel

Fra Filippo Lippi, Madonna and Child with Two Angels, 1455 Tempera on wood panel, Uffizzi, Florence

Andrea Mantegna, The Lamentation over the Dead Christ, 1490, tempera on canvas

Book II on “Perspective” “First of all, on the surface on which I am going to paint, I draw a rectangle of whatever size I want, which I regard as an open window through which the subject to be painted is seen…” (pg. 56).

Vanishing Point Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, 1498, tempera on plaster

Book II: “On Painting” " The istoria will move the soul of the beholder when each man painted there clearly shows the movement of his own soul… These movements of the soul are made known by movements of the body…” Alberti, pg. 77 Leonardo da Vinci, The Virgin of the Rocks, 1483, oil on panel

Alberti’s “Veil” (pg. 68 -69) • “It is a thin veil, finely woven, dyed whatever colour pleases you… this veil I place between the eye and the thing seen, so the visual pyramid penetrates through the thinness of the veil. ” • “…the veil will greatly aid you in learning how to paint when you see round objects and objects in relief. ” Leon Battista Alberti, Il velo (“The Veil”) Woodcut illustration by Albrecht Dürer, 1538

As art historians have noted, Alberti outlines a formula or structure for painting that entails: • • A variable rectangular frame The window as metaphor for the frame of the painting The “subject” that is seen through this frame The human figure as a standard of measure and the “centric point” • The immobility of the viewer