Leon Battista Alberti Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Beauty, Art, Design

  72 Copy quote

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

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Art, Practice, Reason

  29 Copy quote

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

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Inspirational, Art, Dedication

  Leon Battista Alberti, Renée Neu Watkins (1999). “The use and abuse of books”, Waveland Pr Inc

  41 Copy quote

• A man can do all things if he will.

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Attitude, Men, Mindset

  36 Copy quote

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

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Cities, House, Turns

  "If a City Were Perfect, What Would It Look Like?" by Roderick Conway Morris, www.nytimes.com. May 8, 2012.

  33 Copy quote

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

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Ignorance, Errors, Doe

  43 Copy quote

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

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Appreciation, Perfect, Mind

  Leon Battista Alberti, John Richard Spencer (1966). “Leon Battista Alberti O Painting”, p.66, Yale University Press

  65 Copy quote

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

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Soul, Movement, Body

  34 Copy quote

• 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.

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Art, Errors, Perfect

  Leon Battista Alberti, John Richard Spencer (1966). “Leon Battista Alberti O Painting”, p.98, Yale University Press

  34 Copy quote

• 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.

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Life, God, Science

  33 Copy quote

• 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.

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Dark, Light, Color

  37 Copy quote

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

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Beautiful, Nature, Paint

  35 Copy quote

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

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Perfect, Granted, Produce

  35 Copy quote

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

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Enough, Persons, Can Do

  17 Copy quote

• Errors accumulate in the sketch and compound in the model.

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Errors, Compounds, Models

  18 Copy quote

• 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.

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Reality, Practice, Drawing

  15 Copy quote

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

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Men, Source, Fortune

  17 Copy quote

• Nothing overshadows truth so much as authority.

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Truth, Authority

  11 Copy quote

• 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.

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Art, Black And White, Light

  23 Copy quote

• 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.

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Alive, Painting, Divine

  14 Copy quote

• As ability goes, so goes our fortune.

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Fortune, Ability

  12 Copy quote

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

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Artist, Painting

  12 Copy quote

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

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Teacher, Shameful, Knows

  Leon Battista Alberti, Cecil Grayson (1972). “On painting and On sculpture: The Latin texts of De pictura and De statua”

  15 Copy quote

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

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Philosophy, Philosopher

  11 Copy quote

• 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.

  Leon Battista Alberti

  Distance, Body, Function

  16 Copy quote

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