1) Alberti, Leon Battista. On Painting. London: Penguin Classics, 2004.
2) Kemp, Martin, ed. Leonardo on Painting. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.
and
3) Panofsky, Erwin. Perspective as Symbolic Form. New York: Zone Books, 1991.
These three books work together in interesting ways. First of all, the Alberti and Leonardo books gave me a real sense of how Renaissance artists viewed painting in their own time. Both books are treatises on how to affectively paint, including advice in both the technical and social realms of painting. Of great importance to both artists was the moral fiber and social activities of a painter, but of more importance to my research was their take on the necessary technical elements of a successful painting. In each treatise, the element of perspective is mentioned, more thoroughly I believe in Leonardo’s writings. I will include now the annotations for each book:
Alberti, Leon Battista. On Painting. London: Penguin Classics, 2004.
This book is a translated copy of Alberti’s treatise on painting, originally written in the fifteenth century. Separated into three smaller books, the treatise is meant to teach artists the proper ways to paint technically and also the necessary morals and social presence of a successful artist. Of particular interest are the segments in which Alberti discusses the necessary technicalities of painting, including composition, proportion and dimension, all facets of creating perspective in painting. Various diagrams detailing the processes accompany the text, and Alberti charges himself with the task of informing painters on how to create a pleasing image. This book is helpful because it offers insight into the way that Renaissance artists would have approached painting from a technical standpoint. This allows for an exploration of both how Renaissance artists interacted with and taught one another and how they understood their trade; these help to create the larger picture of perspective painting in the Renaissance.
Kemp, Martin, ed. Leonardo on Painting. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.
This book is a translated and compiled collection of Leonardo da Vinci’s writings and drawings on Renaissance painting. Separated into six parts the treatise explores issues ranging from general principles, to the science of painting, to the moral fiber necessary to be a painter. The most pertinent section to my research in this treatise is entitled “The Science of Vision in Painting” and is broken into discussions of various elements of perspective. Leonardo suggests that one of the great elements of mathematics is the ability to create geometric perspective, and that such perspective in art elevates two-dimensional works to a higher plane of understanding for viewers. After a discussion of the eye’s function, Leonardo continues on by saying that a painter is nothing without rules of perspective—to simply copy what one sees without utilizing the theories of science and geometry is insufficient. This book, much like Alberti’s treatise, is helpful in recognizing the ways in which Renaissance artists approached painting. The focus was not on drawing what one saw or felt, but on taking what one saw and reproducing it within the bounds of sound scientific theory.
I read Panofsky’s book Perspective as Symbolic Form after already reading the two treatises, and it offered an interesting perspective (not trying to use a play on words or anything…) on the matter of perspective. Panofsky asserts that each historical epoch in the timeline of art history (focused on the Western world, as my own research will be) has its own use for perspective in its attempt at seeing the world. Perspective is not an issue of value according to Panofsky, but of style. As with some of the other more modern works I have read, Panofsky emphasizes the fact that modern conceptions of geometrical perspective were invented in the Renaissance, and that these depictions of space are essentially no more “naturalistic” than a more “primitive” work.
Panofsky, Erwin. Perspective as Symbolic Form. New York: Zone Books, 1991.
This book by Panofsky has been recognized as one of the foremost writings on perspective. Exploring the Western artistic timeline of spatial representation, Panofsky seeks to demonstrate the ways in which each historical culture or epoch placed different value in perspective and strove to create different yet unified visions of the world. Panofsky states that the mathematical perspective that dominates modern thinking was in fact invented in the Renaissance, and is a “systematic abstraction from the structure of psychophysiological space” (30). By exploring the ways in which retinal vision works he is able to suggest, in other words, that a work utilizing geometric perspective is no more “naturalistic” than an archaic work. Rather, different cultures in time had different ways of seeing and interpreting the world which is reflected in the various stages of perspective utilized in their work. Panofsky’s work is helpful to my research in that is makes this distinction between various levels of perspective and suggests that perspective itself should not be an indicator of value in artwork, but is more related to style.
These three books play off one another in an interesting way, with the Panofsky work addressing the generalized Renaissance attitudes towards perspective that are clearly and adamantly stated in the treatises.
A presto…
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