Leon Battista Alberti Quotations

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Men can do all things if they will.

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.

Nothing overshadows truth so much as authority.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Buildings have been made because of man.

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

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

As ability goes, so goes our fortune.

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

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

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

A person can do anything if they only will it strongly enough.

Errors accumulate in the sketch and compound in the model.

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

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.

Men are themselves the source of their own fortune and misfortune.

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.

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

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

A man can do all things if he will.

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.

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

A common error of ignorance is to maintain that what one does not know does not exist.

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.

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

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

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