Leon Battista Alberti and Nicholas Cusanus: Towards an Epistemology of Vision for Italian Renaissance...

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Charles H. Carman Dr. Allison Levy

Leon Battista Alberti and Nicholas Cusanus

Towards an Epistemology of Vision for Italian Renaissance Art and Culture

Charles H. Carman, Dr. Allison Levy

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English

Routledge
18 August 2014

Theory of art; Renaissance art; Religious subjects depicted in art

Series: Visual Culture in Early Modernity

Providing a fresh evaluation of Alberti’s text On Painting (1435), along with comparisons to various works of Nicholas Cusanus - particularly his Vision of God (1450) - this study reveals a shared epistemology of vision. And, the author argues, it is one that reflects a more deeply Christian Neoplatonic ideal than is typically accorded Alberti. Whether regarding his purpose in teaching the use of a geometric single point perspective system, or more broadly in rendering forms naturalistically, the emphasis leans toward the ideal of Renaissance art as highly rational. There remains the impression that the principle aim of the painter is to create objective, even illusionistic images. A close reading of Alberti’s text, however, including some adjustments in translation, points rather towards an emphasis on discerning the spiritual in the material.

Alberti’s use of the tropes Minerva and Narcissus, for example, indicates the opposing characteristics of wisdom and sense certainty that function dialectically to foster the traditional importance of seeing with the eye of the intellect rather than merely with physical eyes. In this sense these figures also set the context for his, and, as the author explains, Brunelleschi’s earlier invention of this perspective system that posits not so much an objective seeing as an opposition of finite and infinite seeing, which, moreover, approximates Cusanus’s famous notion of a coincidence of opposites. Together with Alberti’s and Cusanus’s ideals of vision, extensive analysis of art works discloses a ubiquitous commitment to stimulating an intellectual perception of divine, essential, and unseen realities that enliven the visible material world.

By: Charles H. Carman
Series edited by: Dr. Allison Levy
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: New edition
Dimensions: Height: 246mm, Width: 174mm, Spine: 18mm
Weight: 703g
ISBN: 9781472429230
ISBN 10: 1472429230
Series: Visual Culture in Early Modernity
Pages: 218
Publication Date: 18 August 2014
Audience: College/higher education , General/trade , Primary , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Charles H. Carman is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Buffalo, USA.

Reviews for Leon Battista Alberti and Nicholas Cusanus: Towards an Epistemology of Vision for Italian Renaissance Art and Culture

'... casts new light on familiar material ...' Renaissance Quarterly 'The main strength of this book lies in Carman's aptitude for close reading, and his keen analyses provide a fresh and nuanced encounter with Alberti's On Painting. Carman also performs thorough inquiries into the meaning of key terms in Alberti's work, such as istoria and nature. ...his sophisticated readings of Alberti's work buttress the view that Renaissance culture was not only interested in that which can be observed in nature, but it also continued the medieval search for the ideal and fixed ontology of reality.' CAA Reviews