LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI

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

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.

The city is like a great house, and the house in its turn a small city.

When I investigate and when I discover that the forces of the heavens and the planets are within ourselves, then truly I seem to be living among the gods.

Men can do all things if they will.

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

A man can do all things if he but wills them.

Beauty: the adjustment of all parts proportionately so that one cannot add or subtract or change without impairing the harmony of the whole.

Nothing overshadows truth so completely as authority.

It seems obvious that colors vary according to lights, because when any color is placed in the shade, it appears to be different from the same color which is located in light. Shade makes color dark, whereas light makes color bright where it strikes.

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

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

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

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

No art, however minor, demands less than total dedication if you want to excel in it.

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

Painting contains a divine force which not only makes absent men present, as friendship is said to do, but moreover makes the dead seem almost alive.

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.

Philosophers say that nothing can be seen that is neither illuminated nor colored.

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.

Buildings have been made because of man.

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

The Arts are learnt by reason and method; they are mastered by practice.

The picture will have charm when each color is very unlike the one next to it.

I prefer you to take as your model a mediocre sculpture rather than an excellent painting, for from painted objects we train our hand only to make a likeness, whereas from sculptures we learn to represent both likeness and correct incidence of light.