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Leon Battista Alberti Biography

Leon Battista Alberti

Leon Battista Alberti (Italian: [leˈon batˈtista alˈbɛrti]; February 14, 1404 – April 25, 1472) was an Italian humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher and cryptographer; he epitomised the Renaissance Man. Although he is often characterized exclusively as an architect, 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." Although Alberti is known mostly for being an artist, he was also a mathematician of many sorts and made great advances to this field during the 15th century. Alberti's life was described in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects.

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Leon Battista Alberti Quotes

Errors accumulate in the sketch and compound in the model.

Accumulate, Compounds, Errors, Model, Models, Sketch

What is painting but the act of embracing, by means of art, the surface of the pool?

Act, Art, Embracing, Mean, Painting, Surface

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.

Drawing, Easily, Practice, Reality, Seen

. . . the movements of the body reveal the movements of the soul.

Body, Movement, Movements, Reveal, Soul

It is very rarely granted even to Nature herself to produce anything absolutely perfect in every part.

Granted, Perfect, Produce, Rarely

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.

Drawing, Expense, Preparing, Trouble, Whole, Woods

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.

Artist, Bodies, Numbers, Order, Ought, Strictly

We must always take from nature what we paint and always choose the most beautiful things.

Beautiful, Choose, Nature, Paint, Things

Buildings have been made because of man.

Building, Buildings, Made, Man, Men

It was never shameful to learn from any teacher things that are useful to know.

Know, Knows, Learn, Shameful, Teacher

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.

Appears, Body, Distance, Function, Like, Render

As ability goes, so goes our fortune.

Ability, Fortune

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.

Art, Black, Black And White, Knowing, Painting, White

Painting contains a divine force which. . . makes the dead seem almost alive.

Alive, Contains, Dead, Divine, Painting

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.

Art, Beginnings, Errors, Nothing, Perfect

Painting is possessed of divine power, for not only does it make the absent present, but also makes the dead almost alive.

Absent, Alive, Dead, Divine Power, Doe, Possessed

A man can do all things if he will.

Attitude, Man, Men, Mindset, Things

I certainly consider a great appreciation of painting to be the best indication of a most perfect mind.

Appreciation, Indication, Mind, Perfect

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.

Art, Faces, Outline, Portraiture, Praise

The greatest work of an artist is the history of a painting.

Artist, Greatest, Painting, Work

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