Discussion 4: Sir Anthony Blunt, Artistic Theory in Italy

Leonardo and Michelangelo had very different outlooks on art and how to approach making art.

Leonard's interests were many including: painting of animate and inanimate nature, mathematics, engineering, etc. To him painting was a science because he worked by directly observing nature and by applying mathematically accurate perspective. While he acknowledged that art required some imagination on the part of the artist, he preferred to imitate nature as closely as possible even if it meant painting the ugly parts of nature, "the introduction of ugliness even serves a definite purpose because the contrast of beautiful and ugly parts serves to show up each with greater intensity" (Blunt 31). Leonardo was also not strictly interested in painting the human figure he made drawings of landscapes, water, and animals as well.  

Michelangelo on the other hand was less concerned with nature outside of the human figure. Like Leonardo though, he studied human anatomy and understood perspective, unlike Leonardo, however, Michelangelo wasn't interested in making an exact copy of what he saw.  In his art he worked to protray the beauty of the human figure. He preferred to work with  stone in which he considered himself to be revealing the figure that was already there in the stone. For Michelangelo, his art was a way to express his emotions and Christian faith. For him the beauty of the figures in his work represented spiritual beauty.