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Often appears with: history and the writing of history · religious persecution and toleration · perception and the senses · rank, class, and social order · poetry and the poets · honor, shame, and reputation · rhetoric and persuasion · justice as a virtue · crafts, industry, and manufacture · counsel and advisers to rulers · translation and the transmission of texts · plague, famine, and mass death
Usually: argument (25) · detachment (24) · narrative (21) · praise (15) · curiosity (13) · the fall of the great (10) · wonder (10) · lament (7) · reflection (6) · description (5)
“Received from my brother the news of my mother's dying on Monday about five or six o'clock in the afternoon, and that the last time she spoke of her children was on Friday last, and her last words were, "God bless my poor Sam!” Samuel Pepys, The Diary of Samuel Pepys · vivid
“Give me an object which I can see and touch and not only hear, and blame not my choice in having placed thy work beneath my elbow, while I hold the work of the painter with both my hands before my eyes, because my very hands have chosen to serve a worthier sense than that of hearing.” Leonardo da Vinci, Thoughts on Art and Life · observation
“But I say to you that it will prove more difficult to mend the mind of the master who commits such errors than to repair the work he has spoilt.” Leonardo da Vinci, Thoughts on Art and Life · insight
“Small rooms or dwellings help the mind to concentrate itself; large rooms are a source of distraction.” Leonardo da Vinci, Thoughts on Art and Life · precept
“The mind of the painter must be like unto a mirror, which ever takes the colour of the object it reflects, and contains as many images as there are objects before it.” Leonardo da Vinci, Thoughts on Art and Life · observation
“Therefore realize, O painter, that thou canst not succeed unless thou art the universal master of imitating by thy art every variety of nature's forms.” Leonardo da Vinci, Thoughts on Art and Life · precept
“The effect produced by these mottled walls is like that of the sound of bells, in the vibrating of which you may recognize any name or word you choose to imagine.” Leonardo da Vinci, Thoughts on Art and Life · vivid
“There is no human experience that can be termed true science unless it can be mathematically demonstrated.” Leonardo da Vinci, Thoughts on Art and Life · insight
“I have written the life of Arnolfo with the greatest possible brevity because, although his works do not nearly approach the perfection of those of the present time, yet he none the less deserves to be remembered with affection, since, in the midst of so great darkness, he pointed out the road to perfection to those who came after him.” Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, V · insight
“This is the talent which the Emperor Caeesar gave to Pisa, to the intent that the tribute which they rendered to him should be regulated thereby.” Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, V · observation
“There he formed a close intimacy with them, and by dint of persuasion, money, and promises he at length contrived to bring to Florence Master Apollonio, a Greek painter, who taught him how to bake the glass of the mosaic, and how to make the cement in which to fix it.” Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, V · observation
“I say, then, that sculpture and painting are in truth sisters, born from one father, that is, design, at one and the same birth, and have no precedence one over the other...” Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Arc · insight
Pepys attends Mr. Lilly’s pictures and sees “The Maiden Queen,” then at Exeter House hears a cause argued against Sir Robert Wiseman, feeling uncertain until the judge delays decision to tomorrow.
which indeed the more I see the more I like, and is an excellent play, and so done by Nell her merry part, as cannot be better done in nature. 26th. To Exeter House, where the Judge was sitting, and there heard our cause pleaded; Sir -- Turner, Sir W. Walker, and Sir Ellis Layton being our counsel against Sir Robert Wiseman [D.C.L. King's Advocate 1669.] on the other. The second of our three counsel was the best,…
The passage claims many interpreters overlook the book’s underlying incongruity, including illustrators who misrepresent a venta as an elaborate fountain, thus dulling Cervantes’ intended comedy.
victims of oppression, and the rest of the incongruities between Don Quixote’s world and the world he lived in, between things as he saw them and things as they were. It is strange that this element of incongruity, underlying the whole humour and purpose of the book, should have been so little heeded by the majority of those who have undertaken to interpret “Don Quixote.” It has been completely overlooked, for examp…
Tocqueville describes democratic imitation arts as shifting from ideal to real, from inner sentiment to bodily motion, citing differences between Raphael, David, and medieval painters.
I found that its walls were of whitewashed brick, and its columns of painted wood. All the edifices which I had admired the night before were of the same kind. The social condition and the institutions of democracy impart, moreover, certain peculiar tendencies to all the imitative arts, which it is easy to point out. They frequently withdraw them from the delineation of the soul to fix them exclusively on that of th…
Discussing fresco painting, Vitruvius criticizes modern taste for unrealistic monstrosities and argues that pictures should represent things that can exist, using examples of architectural theatre scenery altered for propriety.
THE DECADENCE OF FRESCO PAINTING 1. For the other apartments, that is, those intended to be used in Spring, Autumn, and Summer, as well as for atriums and peristyles, the ancients required realistic pictures of real things. A picture is, in fact, a representation of a thing which really exists or which can exist: for example, a man, a house, a ship, or anything else from whose definite and actual structure copies re…
He argues that mental stimulation mostly shifts attention away from pain, offering his own toothache example, and concludes that although mind and body interact, the body ultimately governs the mind through hunger and sleep.
difference. I have not perceived that I was less stiff in my limbs, or less footsore, on the morning after the day of the sport, than on the other morning. In all these cases, stimulants upon the mind seem to act rather by taking off the attention from the bodily fatigue, than by really and truly counteracting it. If the energy of my mind had really counteracted the fatigue of my body, why should I feel tired the ne…
Left alone, Elena suffers from heat, hunger, thirst, and insect stings while Arno taunts her with visible water but no access; her skin reddens with blood as she endures until the scholar returns.
if she received so many stabs with a javelin, and she was ever restlessly feeling her sores with her hands, and cursing herself, her life, her lover, and the scholar. Thus by the exorbitant heat of the sun, by the flies and gadflies, harassed, goaded, and lacerated, tormented also by hunger, and yet more by thirst, and, thereto by a thousand distressful thoughts, she panted herself erect on her feet, and looked abou…
He continues Cimabue at Pisa, Lucca/Assisi, and especially Assisi’s church of San Francesco, describing extensive fresco programs, improvements over the Byzantine style, and later completion by Giotto.
the fall of the drapery which was not to be found in the Byzantine style in any work executed up to that time not only in Pisa but throughout Italy. For the same church Cimabue afterwards painted a large picture of Our Lady with the child in her arms, surrounded by several angels, on a gold ground. In order to make room for the marble altar which is now there it was soon afterwards removed from its original situatio…
Vasari recounts Cimabue’s return to Florence with works at Santo Spirito and Santa Maria Novella, describes a celebrated procession, his death in 1300, his discipleship by Giotto, and later memorial traditions.
representing scenes from her life, at the request of the Abbot of S. Paolo in Ripa d'Arno. The panel is to-day over the altar of the Virgin in that church. The name of Cimabue having become generally known through these works, he was taken to Assisi, a city of Umbria, where, in conjunction with some Greek masters, he painted a part of the vaulting of the lower Church of S. Franceso, and on the walls, the life of Jes…
He adds details and anecdotes: Cimabue’s tempera crucifix at Pisa with Latin sentences, partnerships with Arnolfo di Lapo for Santa Maria del Fiore, plus Dante and a 1334 commentator’s criticism.
to Florence on some affairs of his own, he did not pursue the task, which was finished by Giotto many years after, as will be related when the time comes. Cimabue having thus returned to Florence painted in the cloister of S. Spirito, where the whole length of wall towards the church is done in the Byzantine style by other masters, events from the life of Christ, in three arches, with considerable excellence of desi…
The passage quotes and contrasts Cimabue’s renown with Giotto’s greater fame, then describes portraits of Cimabue painted by Simone of Siena and Vasari’s own Cimabue drawings.
"Credidit ut Clmabos picturae castra tenere Sic tenuit vivens, nunc tenet astra poli." I must not omit to say that if the greatness of Giotto, his pupil, had not obscured the glory of Cimabue, the fame of the latter would have been more considerable, as Dante points out in his Commedia in the eleventh canto of the Purgatorio, with an allusion to the inscription on the tomb, where he says: "Credette Cimabue nella pi…
Vasari credits Pope Innocent III with major Vatican-hill palaces and praises the sculptor-architect Marchionne of Arezzo for elaborate, fantastical church ornament, including dated work tied to 1216 and later restorations by popes.
the side walls of the buildings, a very praiseworthy contrivance for those times. The cornices and other parts show that the artists were helping one another to find the good. Innocent III. afterwards caused two palaces to be erected on the Vatican hill, and from what can be seen of them they appear to have been in a fairly good style, but since they were destroyed by other popes, and especially by Nicholas V., who …
He explains how Pope Innocent III’s confirmation of the Friars Minor increased church building, then tells how Brother Elias and Master Jacopo of Assisi designed the multi-level church and tomb arrangement for St Francis.
the arch above he made the twelve months in relief, with varied fancies, each month with its zodiacal sign, a work which must have been considered marvellous in those times. About the same time the order of the friars minors of St Francis was established, which, after it had been confirmed by Pope Innocent III., increased the general devoutness and the number of friars, not only in Italy, but in every part of the wo…
Arnolfo dies in 1300 and Vasari praises him for guiding later artists toward perfection, adds notes about Giotto’s portrait and Simon of Siena’s cathedral exterior model, then transitions to Niccola and Giovanni Pisani and Byzantine-style emancipation.
more than the palace in the space of two years. It was in later years that the building received those improvements to which it owes its present grandeur and majesty. After all these things, and many others not less useful than beautiful, Arnolfo died at the age of seventy, in the year 1300, about the time when Giovanni Villani began to write the general history of his times. And since he left S. Maria del Fiore not…
It recounts Niccola Pisano’s commissions after his Siena pulpit fame: work for Siena’s Duomo, churches at Arezzo, Cortona, Viterbo, and Orvieto, plus Naples-related patronage from King Charles, highlighting a dramatic Last Judgment in marble.
"Anno milleno bis centum bisque trideno. Hoc opus insigne sculpsit Nicola Pisanus." The people of Siena, moved by the fame of this work, which greatly delighted not only the Pisans, but whoever saw it, assigned to Niccola the task of making for their Duomo the pulpit from which the gospel is sung, at the time when Guglielmo Mariscotti was praetor. In this Niccola introduced a number of subjects from the life of Jesu…
Giovanni Pisano is described as Niccola’s son and successor, continuing tomb and fountain work in Perugia, later building Pisa’s Campo Santo, then serving projects in Naples, Siena, Arezzo, and Florence, with quoted inscriptions including a dated A.D. 1278.
he introduced a great number of figures and spared no pains, it has been praised even to our own day by those whose judgment does not extend beyond such circumstances. Among other children Niccola had a son called Giovanni, who was always with his father, and under his care learned both sculpture and architecture, so that in the course of a few years he became not only the equal of his father, but his superior in so…
The passage continues Giovanni Pisano’s career: Castel Nuovo in Naples for King Charles, facade work at Siena, the high altar table at Arezzo, his collaboration with Germans and Sienese craftsmen, and his later projects in Bologna/Florence/Pistoia/Perugia including tomb-making and admonitions about competent advice.
and marble ornamentation, and as no expense was spared, it was roofed with lead. On the outside of the principle entrance may be read these words, carved in the marble: "A.D. MCCLXXVIII. tempore Domini Federigi archiepiscopi Pisani, et Domini Terlati potestatis operario Orlando Sardella, Johanne magistro aedificante."
Giovanni’s Pisan pulpit and other Marian works are described in detail, including the Prato girdle chapel episode in 1312 and Giovanni’s death in 1320, with Vasari concluding that they advanced design and sculpture in a dark age.
"A.D. MCCLXXVIII. tempore Domini Federigi archiepiscopi Pisani, et Domini Terlati potestatis operario Orlando Sardella, Johanne magistro aedificante." In the completion of this work, 1283, Giovanni went to Naples, where he erected the Castel Nuovo for King Charles; and in order to enlarge it and add to its strength, he was compelled to pull down a number of houses and churches, among them a convent of the friars of …
Vasari praises the sculptors Niccola and Giovanni for their prolific work and then quotes an inscription about a “talent” given by Emperor Caesar to Pisa, dated A.D. 1313 and mentioning Giovanni Rosso’s marble column and lion.
an age which lacked every element of good design, in the midst of all the darkness they threw so much light on those arts in which they were really excellent. Giovanni was honourably buried in the Campo Santo, in the same tomb in which his father Niccola was laid. Many disciples of his flourished after him, but especially Lino, sculptor and architect of Siena, who made the chapel which contains the body of St Ranier…
Andrea Tafi improves mosaic art from Byzantine norms by learning from Greek mosaicists in Venice, then works at Florence’s San Giovanni, decorating the tribune and Christ in ways that influence later architects and artists.
Andrea Tafi, Florentine Painter. Just as the works of Cimabue excited no small amount of wonder in the men of that time, since he introduced a better design and form into the art of painting, whereas they had only been accustomed to see things executed on the Byzantine style, so the mosaics of Andrea Tafi, who was a contemporary, were much admired and even considered divine, for the people of that day, who had not …
Vasari describes the tribune’s mosaic program at San Giovanni—angels, biblical scenes, Joseph, Christ, and John the Baptist—and judges it “rude,” then credits Andrea Tafi’s later “Christ” and explains how art progresses toward Giotto.
"Sculptor laudatur, quod doctus in arte probatur, Guido da Como me cunctis carmine promo." But to return to S. Giovanni, I pass by the history of its foundation because that has been written by Giovanni Villani and other authors, and, as I have already remarked that the good architecture in use to-day is derived from that building, I will now add that, to judge by appearances, the tribune is of a later date. At the …
Vasari shifts to fresc o painting, arguing that fresco demands quicker judgment without time for patience because true colors appear only after drying, and mistakes lead to patches and visible failures.
make their drawings on corresponding materials or on cartoons; and that finally, the quality that little by little transfers their models to the marble is rather patience than aught else. But let us consider about judgment, as the sculptors wish, and see whether it is not more necessary to one who works in fresco than to one who chisels in marble. For here not only is there no place for patience or for time, which a…
The painters’ argument concludes that painting can depict many elements at once—light, water, earth, fire—and more varied subjects than sculpture, supporting painting’s superior nobility through breadth and preservation.
after some time to restore them, what has been worked on the fresh plaster remains, and what has been retouched on the dry is carried away by the wet sponge. They add, moreover, that whereas the sculptors make two figures together, or at the most three, from one block of marble, they make many of them on one single panel, with all those so many and so varied aspects which the sculptors claim for one single statue, c…
Vasari declares sculpture and painting are sisters from one father, design, with no true hierarchy of nobility; he blames those who separate them, and praises Michelangelo Buonarroti as uniting the arts.
order to display his eloquence, lecturing and making disputation about the virtues and parts of the excellent captain, made Hannibal laugh not less at his presumption than at his ignorance. I say, then, that sculpture and painting are in truth sisters, born from one father, that is, design, at one and the same birth, and have no precedence one over the other, save insomuch as the worth and the strength of those who …
In the Preface, Vasari claims God’s creation of design includes the first forms of sculpture and painting, then traces a biblical and ancient lineage involving Egypt, Babylon, Chaldaeans, Belus, Semiramis, Exodus, and the golden calf.
PREFACE TO THE LIVES I have no manner of doubt that it is with almost all writers a common and deeply-fixed opinion that sculpture and painting together were first discovered, by the light of nature, by the people of Egypt, and that there are certain others who attribute to the Chaldaeans the first rough sketches in marble and the first reliefs in statuary, even as they also give to the Greeks the invention of the b…
Vasari traces how statues and painting began before the Flood and how Greeks, Egyptians, and others developed sculpture and painting, naming early figures and explaining their techniques and influence.
borders of the priestly vestments, and so many other most beautiful castings for the Tabernacle, for no other reason than to bring the people to contemplate and to adore them. From the things seen before the Flood, then, the pride of men found the way to make the statues of those for whom they wished that they should remain famous and immortal in the world. And the Greeks, who think differently about this origin, sa…
Vasari says Rome began sculpture late, then claims it decayed after the twelve Caesars, pointing to Constantinian Rome’s imperfect works and asserting that later decline preceded the Goths’ destructions.
of its antiquity, let us come to the clearer matters of their perfection, ruin, and restoration, or rather resurrection, whereof we will be able to discourse on much better grounds. I say, then, it being true indeed, that they began late in Rome, if the first figure was, as is said, the image of Ceres made of metal from the treasure of Spurius Cassius, who, for conspiring to make himself King, was put to death by hi…
He explains why architecture survived better than sculpture in Constantine’s time—because buildings reused spoils—then cites churches and their recycled materials, arguing sculpture continued declining after Constantine’s move to Byzantium.
from the perfection of the medals and statues of the other Emperors; and all this shows that long before the coming of the Goths into Italy sculpture had greatly declined. Architecture, as has been said, continued to maintain itself, if not so perfect, in a better state; nor is there reason to marvel at this, seeing that, as the great edifices were made almost wholly of spoils, it was easy for the architects, in mak…
Vasari links Christian persecutions and later church building (under Julian the Apostate) to a near-total loss of artistic design, then adds that later barbarian invasions devastated Rome and its craftsmen.
with ornaments in stucco and in painting is wholly wanting in design, and that many other things which are seen in that great church demonstrate the imperfection of the arts. Many years after, when the Christians were persecuted under Julian the Apostate, there was erected on the C[oe]lian Mount a church to S. John and S. Paul, the martyrs, in a manner so much worse than those named above, that it is seen clearly th…
He narrates how Visigoths and Vandals sacked and enslaved Romans, how virtue and language were changed, and how Christian zeal destroyed pagan statues and temples, worsening the artistic collapse.
in honour of the said Hilarian, for the reason that he had been for a long time living in it when he went, with Donatus, to the crown of martyrdom. But because Fortune, when she has brought men to the height of her wheel, is wont, either in jest or in repentance, to throw them down again, it came about after these things that there rose up in various parts of the world all the barbarous peoples against Rome; whence …
Vasari describes further ruin under Totila and repeated fires, the burial of stucco and painted lower rooms into “grottoes,” and the later plundering and removal of remaining art.
names, and tongues had been changed; and all these things together and each by itself had caused every lovely mind and lofty intellect to become most brutish and most base. But what brought infinite harm and damage on the said professions, even more than all the aforesaid causes, was the burning zeal of the new Christian religion, which, after a long and bloody combat, with its wealth of miracles and with the sincer…
After the Ostrogoths, Constantine II strips Rome again, then Vasari says Saracens carry off remaining spoils to Alexandria; he ends by claiming later artists worked without knowing rules, using their own intelligence.
a manner that, since the said lower rooms remained under the ground, the moderns have called them grottoes, and "grotesque" the pictures that are therein seen at the present day. After the end of the Ostrogoths, who were destroyed by Narses, men were living among the ruins of Rome in some fashion, poorly indeed, when there came, after 100 years, Constantine II, Emperor of Constantinople, who, although received lovin…
Vasari argues that after the Lombards’ rule, design arts in Italy steadily declined because craftsmen died and old methods were lost, producing crude, German/Greek-style buildings and sculpture, though he praises notable Roman and Ravenna examples.
by the air, set themselves to work, not according to the rules of the aforesaid arts, which they did not know, but according to the quality of their own intelligence. The arts of design, then, having been brought to these limits both before and during the lordship of the Lombards over Italy and also afterwards, continued gradually to grow worse, although some little work was done, insomuch that nothing could have be…
He reviews architectural progress in Florence and elsewhere—Charlemagne’s Church of S. Apostolo, Venice’s St. Mark’s Greek rebuilding, and Tuscan abbeys—showing partial recovery before later improvement and imitation of ancient order.
of S. Vincenzo in Milan, nor that of S. Giulia in Brescia, seeing that they were all built at the greatest cost, but in the most ugly and haphazard manner. Later, in Florence, architecture made some little progress, and the Church of S. Apostolo, that was erected by Charlemagne, although small, was most beautiful in manner; for not to mention that the shafts of the columns, although they are of separate pieces, show…
Vasari credits renewed vigor in Tuscany to rebuilding efforts like Pisa’s Duomo (begun 1016) under architect Buschetto, using ancient marble spoils, and to further building in Pistoia, Lucca, and Lucca’s S. Martino.
wholly spent, may be seen to have begun to win back something, as the mosaic shows that was made in the principal chapel[5] of the said Church of S. Miniato. From such beginnings, then, these arts commenced to grow better in design throughout Tuscany, as is seen in the year 1016, from the commencement made by the people of Pisa for the building of their Duomo, seeing that in those times it was a great thing for men …
He describes Lucca and Pisa building campaigns, then shifts to sculpture and painting: older works were hidden after Rome’s destruction, and later Greek craftsmen reintroduced rudimentary art until Tuscan spirits restored better imitation.
TORQUEIS AUREIS DECORAVIT ... ECCLESIA SANCTORUM APOSTOLORUM ... IN ALTARI INCLUSA EST LAMINA PLUMBEA, IN QUA DESCRIPTA APPARET PRAEFATA FUNDATIO ET CONSECRATIO FACTA PER ARCHIEPISCOPUM TURPINUM, TESTIBUS ROLANDO ET ULIVERIO. The aforesaid edifice of the Duomo in Pisa, awaking the minds of many to fair enterprises throughout all Italy, and above all in Tuscany, was the cause that in the city of Pistoia, in the year …
Vasari distinguishes ‘ancient’ art before Constantine from later ‘old’ works produced from Pope Silvester’s era onward by Greek remnants, whose mosaics and paintings were lively in color but often monstrous and crude.
be seen, of which I will at present make no mention, for the reason that they will be spoken of below according to the occasions that may come before me. In like manner the good sculptures and pictures which had been buried under the ruins of Italy remained up to the same time hidden from or not known to the men boorishly reared in the rudeness of the modern use of that age, wherein no other sculptures or pictures e…
Vasari begins Cimabue’s life: after Italy’s devastation, in Florence (1240) Cimabue is born, drawn to painting by nature, apprenticed to Greek painters, and quickly surpasses them by making work more perfect and natural.
certain figures for corbels to support the roof, so rude and vile, so misshapen, and of such a grossness of manner, that it appears impossible that worse could be imagined. Thus far have I thought fit to discourse from the beginning of sculpture and of painting, and peradventure at greater length than was necessary in this place, which I have done, indeed, not so much carried away by my affection for art as urged by…
Cimabue’s career continues with panels and frescoes in Florence and Pisa—Madonnas, a Crucifix, and works at Vallombrosa and the Porcellana hospital—where Vasari claims he replaces the stiff Greek style with softer natural drapery and new invention.
[Footnote 4: The libbra is twelve ounces of our ordinary pound (avoirdupois).] [Footnote 5: It is difficult to find a rendering of "cappella maggiore" that is absolutely satisfactory. There may be a chapel in some churches that is actually larger than the "principal chapel." The principal chapel generally contains the choir, but not always, and when Vasari wants to say "choir" he uses the word "coro." The rendering …
Cimabue’s fame brings him to Assisi, where he paints major fresco cycles in the lower Church of S. Francesco and later the upper church and vaulting stories of Christ, Mary, saints, Evangelists, and the Doctors, largely surpassing Greek painters.
a little panel, and round her, with little figures, all the stories of her life; which little panel is to-day over the altar of the Virgins in the said church. By reason of these works, then, the name of Cimabue being very famous everywhere, he was brought to Assisi, a city of Umbria, where, in company with certain Greek masters, in the lower Church of S. Francesco, he painted part of the vaulting, and on the walls …
During her novitiate, Teresa endures unfair blame despite seeking solitude, envies another nun’s patience through a fatal ulcer illness, and later describes her own prolonged, severe illness and confession.
Illness and Patience of the Saint. The Story of a Priest Whom She Rescued from a Life of Sin. 1. I forgot to say how, in the year of my novitiate, I suffered much uneasiness about things in themselves of no importance; but I was found fault with very often when I was blameless. I bore it painfully and with imperfection; however, I went through it all, because of the joy I had in being a nun. When they saw me seek…
Teresa describes being tortured for five hours with bodily and interior pain, making interior resolutions to endure, then recognizing the cause through a frightening demon beside her and ultimately escaping fear.
Of Certain Outward Temptations and Appearances of Satan. Of the Sufferings Thereby Occasioned. Counsels for Those Who Go on Unto Perfection. 1. Now that I have described certain temptations and troubles, interior and secret, of which Satan was the cause, I will speak of others which he wrought almost in public, and in which his presence could not be ignored. [1] 2. I was once in an oratory, when Satan, in an abo…
The memoir describes Margaret Fuller’s gathering of European art and prints in Boston in the late 1830s and early 1840s, highlighting her study of Michelangelo and Raphael through extensive reading and shared evenings with friends.
the sumptuous gift of Augustus Thorndike. It is much that one man should have power to confer on so many, who never saw him, a benefit so pure and enduring. To these were soon added a heroic line of antique busts, and, at last, by Horatio Greenough, the Night and Day of Michel Angelo. Here was old Greece and old Italy brought bodily to New England, and a verification given to all our dreams and readings. It was easy…
The author explains Fuller’s artistic judgments as emotionally responsive but sometimes unreliable as criticism, then reproduces her manuscript notes from August 1840 on sculpture at the Boston Athenaeum Gallery.
most difficult problems of the practical astronomer to obtain an achromatic telescope, so an achromatic eye, one of the most needed, is also one of the rarest instruments of criticism. She was very susceptible to pleasurable stimulus, took delight in details of form, color, and sound. Her fancy and imagination were easily stimulated to genial activity, and she erroneously thanked the artist for the pleasing emotions…
He contrasts the instant comprehension and lasting value of painted beauty with the slower, often misunderstood, and transient effects of poetic description and music.
ear takes pleasure in hearing its beauty; the sense of touch would like to penetrate into all its pores; the nose also would like to receive the air it exhales. Time in a few years destroys this harmony, but this does not occur in the case of beauty depicted by the painter, because time preserves it for long; and the eye, as far as its function is concerned, receives as much pleasure from the depicted as from the li…
Leonardo maintains that painting outperforms poetry and even challenges claims about mechanical arts, arguing that lived experience shows painting earns more attention and reverence.
great is the painter's influence on the minds of men that he incites them to love and {79} become enamoured of a picture which does not represent any living woman. And if the poet pleases the sense by means of the ear, the painter does so by the eye, which is the superior sense. I will enlarge no further on this theme save to say that if a good painter were to represent the fury of a battle, and if the poet were to…
A story is told where King Matthias dismisses a poet’s book in favor of a painter’s portrait, claiming sight produces soul-harmony that hearing cannot create instantly.
consider that the same proportion exists between the art of the painter and that of the poet as that which exists between the two senses on which they respectively depend. "Knowest thou not that our soul is composed of harmony, and harmony can only be begotten in the moments when the proportions of objects are simultaneously visible and audible? Seest thou not that in thine art there is no harmony created in a mome…
Leonardo argues that loving sight is better than sacrificing other senses, and he claims painting’s subject matter—divine works—makes it more valuable than poetry.
sight is deprived of the beauty of the universe, and is like to one who is confined during his lifetime in a tomb, in which he enjoys life and motion. Now seest thou not that the eye comprehends the beauty of the whole world? It is the head of astrology; it creates cosmography; it gives counsel and correction to all the human arts; it impels {84} men to seek diverse parts of the world; it is the principle of mathem…
Leonardo compares sculpture and painting, arguing sculpture needs light from above and lacks many pictorial effects, while painting offers more complete depiction yet sculpture can be more durable.
34. I have myself practised the art of sculpture as well as that of painting, and I have practised both arts in the same degree. I think, therefore, that I can give an impartial opinion as to which of the two is the most difficult: the most perfect requires the greater talent, and is to be preferred. In the first place sculpture requires a certain light, that is to say, a light from above, and painting carries eve…
Leonardo claims sculpture is a mechanical art rather than a science because it brings bodily sweat and ends with simple proportions, unlike painting, which by its method shows distant horizons.
35. Sculpture is not a science, but a mechanical art, because it causes the brow of the artist who practises it to sweat, and wearies his body; and for {96} such an artist the simple proportions of the limbs, and the nature of movements and attitudes, are all that is essential, and there it ends, and shows to the eye what it is, and it does not cause the spectator to wonder at its nature, as painting does, which in …
Leonardo contrasts bodily fatigue in sculpture with mental fatigue in painting, vividly describing the sculptor’s dirty labor and the painter’s clean leisure with brushes and colors.
38. Painting has a wider intellectual range and is more wonderful and greater as regards its artistic resources than sculpture, because the painter is by necessity constrained to amalgamate his mind with the very mind of nature and to be the interpreter between nature and art, making with art a commentary on the causes of nature's manifestations which are the inevitable result of its laws; and showing in what way th…
Leonardo argues painting has a wider intellectual range than sculpture because it must interpret nature’s laws, master perspective effects, and represent colors, transparency, and atmospheric phenomena sculpture cannot.
46. In order that the favourable disposition of the mind may not be injured by that of the body, the painter or the draughtsman should be solitary, and especially when he is occupied with those speculations and thoughts which continually rise up before the eye, and afford materials to be treasured by the memory. If thou art alone, thou wilt belong to thyself only: if thou hast but one companion, thou wilt only half…
Leonardo says sculpture lacks color beauty and “perspective of colors,” confuses near and far object limits, fails to represent air and mist, and cannot show details beneath transparent water.
48. And thou, O painter, seek to bring about that thy works may attract those who gaze upon them and arrest them with great admiration and delight; and so that they may not attract and forthwith repel them, as the air does to him who in the night season leaps naked from his bed to gaze upon the cloudy and serene sky and forthwith is driven back by the cold, and returns to the bed whence he rose. But let thy works b…
Leonardo advises painters to seek excellence by building on the solid foundation of nature, to keep improving when below one’s ideal, and to avoid greed blocking glory.
53. Many will consider they can reasonably blame me by alleging that my proofs are contrary to the authority of many men held in great esteem by their inexperienced judgements: overlooking the fact that my works are solely and simply the offspring of experience, which is the veritable master. 54. They who are enamoured of practice without knowledge are like the mariner who puts to sea in a vessel without rudder or…
Leonardo urges painters to make works attract and delight without repelling viewers, to avoid excessive ornament and affected hairstyles, and to depict hair and faces naturally.
65. Certainly while a man is painting he should not be loth to hear every opinion: since we know well that a man, although he be not a painter, is cognizant of the forms of another man, and will be able to judge them, whether he is hump-backed or has a shoulder too high or too low, or whether he has a large mouth or nose, or other defects. And if we know that men are capable of giving a correct judgement on the wor…
Leonardo argues painters repeat themselves when their intellect spirit reproduces their own bodily, moral, and temperamental traits in their figures, even shaping likenesses within families.
75. It is a great fault in painters to repeat the same movements, the same faces and manners of stuffs in one subject, and to let the greater part of his faces resemble their creator; and this has often been a source of wonder to me, for I have known some who in all their figures seem to have depicted themselves. And in the figures the actions and ways of the painter were visible. And if they are prompt in action …
Leonardo advises measuring painted figures by universal natural proportions and studying one’s own body defects to avoid reproducing them in compositions.
79. The movements of men are as varied as the {121} circumstances which pass through their minds; and men will be more or less actuated by every circumstance in itself according as they are more or less powerful and according to age; because in the same circumstance an old man or a youth will make a different movement. [Sidenote: Power of Expression in Painting] 80. The imagination does not perceive such excellen…
Leonardo says painters’ unrefined body parts and habits appear in their works without long study, that painting should “move” like rhetoric uses words, and that men’s movements vary with circumstances and age.
of the engines, and the cries of the terrifying victors, {123} and the screams and lamentations of those awe-stricken; neither again can the poet convey these things to the hearing. We will say, therefore, that poetry is an art which is supremely potent for the blind, and the painting has the same result on the deaf. Painting, therefore, excels poetry in proportion as the sense to which it ministers is the nobler. …
He compares imagination and eye-perception, claiming painting surpasses poetry for vivid sensory effect and speed, using examples from war imagery, religious art, and crowd-emotion.
82. The grasses and plants will be paler in proportion as the soil which nourishes them is leaner and devoid of moisture; the earth is leaner and less rich in moisture on the rocks of which the mountains are formed. And the trees will be smaller and thinner in proportion as they are nearer to the summit of the mountain; and the soil is leaner in proportion as it is nearer to the said summit, and it is richer in pro…
He instructs how to paint night by using a nearby fire’s red influence and staging figures’ heat-driven gestures, then how to depict storms with wind-torn clouds, dust, wrecked sea and ships, and terrified people.
85. In the first place you must represent the smoke of the artillery mingled with the air, and the dust, and tossed up by the stampede of the horses and the combatants. And you must treat this confusion in this way: dust being an earthly thing has weight, and although owing to its fineness it is easily lifted up and mingled with the air, it nevertheless falls readily to the earth again, and it is its finest part wh…
Leonardo gives an extensive method for painting battle: managing artillery smoke and dust layers, light and distance, arrows and cannon trails, mud and blood detail, and the poses of conquerors, captives, and commanders.
which is spurted into the air and among the legs and bodies of the horses. And there must not be a level place that is not trampled with gory footsteps. [Sidenote: Envy] 86. Envy offends with false infamy, that is to say, by detraction which frightens virtue. Envy must be represented with the hands raised to heaven in contempt, because if she could she would use her power against God. Make her face covered with …