Alberti on Painting

Nakeeda Lewis

Assignment

Write your response to the following questions.  Base them on the reading  of Leon Battista Alberti’s   On Painting.

1. What qualities does Alberti ascribe to the art of painting that make it, for him, an honorable pursuit?

The qualities are humanity, affability and liberality  

2. What evidence does Alberti provide to persuade his readers that painting is a noble profession?

Alberti, “For their own enjoyment artists should associate with poets and orators who have many embellishments in common with painters and who have a broad knowledge of many things whose greatest praise consists in the invention” and “Therefore I advise that each painter should make himself familiar with poets, rhetoricians and others equally well learned in letters”.  The evidence are poets, rhtericians, geometry  and orator in painting is a noble profession.

3. The earliest written account of perspectival projection is found in the treatise On painting . Explain Alberti’s  definition of painting as  'the intersection of a visual pyramid”. Mention  at least one Renaissance  painting governed by  the perspective grid.

Alberti’s  definition of painting as  the intersection of a visual pyramid is art with express of geometry in composition and reception of light create an 3-D effect in a painting.  

4. For Alberti, the term istoria refers to the literary subject of a painting, but also the specific form in which that subject is presented in a painting.  What pictorial qualities are necessary, in Alberti’s opinion, for a successful istoria?

 The pictorical qualities are necessary for successful istoria is the quality of life.

5. Alberti proposes that "the whole of painting" consists of three parts: circumscription, composition and the reception of light.  What are Alberti's ideas about the three parts of painting?

The Alberti’s about the three parts of painting are the element of art to give a sence of realist feeling to the viewers. . Perfection in the art will be found with diligence, application and study

6. What, in Alberti’s opinion, is the relationship between nature and beauty in the style of a successful painting? Is copying nature exactly adequate to produce a beautiful picture?