The Depictional Semiotic of Alberti's On PaintingAuthor(s): Eric CameronSource: Art Journal, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Autumn, 1975), pp. 25-28Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/775838 .

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The Depictional Semiotic of

Alberti's On Painting

ERIC CAMERON

Briefly, on Art History, Art, and Art Students

When art students balk (as they do) at the discipline of art history, there may be many reasons, and one of them may have some validity: that the specificness of historical explanation prevents generalization to their own situation and that of contemporary art. The attraction of a semiological approach is that it offers the possibility of setting some of the issues on a common basis. My own line of inquiry hinges on an intuition that the historical emergence of "art" out of the art of painting proceeds on the basis of innate potentialities in pictorial signification; that will also explain my choice of an initial sounding.

And more extensively, on Alberti

At the head of the academic tradition, Alberti's On Painting enshrines the tensions of the "language" of pictures and initiates a dialectic whose resolution leads us to the threshold of modern art. A sign-system depiction institutionalizes the

principle of visual resemblance. Whereas verbal signs unite a

sound-image and a concept,' depictional signifier may be differentiated from signified by no more than the way a shared

configuration is construed as an image of paint or of another situation. It may be that actual pictures hardly ever function

solely on that basis; nonetheless, it seems important to enunciate the principle. Moreover, in reading parts of Alberti's treatise, we might suppose the pictures he envisaged to be among the rare exceptions. His advice to painters to think of the picture plane as "transparent and like glass"2 or even "an open window"3 suggests the purest principle of visual equivalence coded in a way that allows the concealment of cues to materials and system alike. Illusion is an extreme possibility of depiction and differentiates it from the significations of language. But illusion, if it is to be consistent,

limits depiction to those situations which can be encompassed within a static configuration of shapes and colors. The applications Alberti envisages are not of that type; with figures his "open window" looks out on a wax-works, not the world of everyday, and from the wax-works he demands a range of expression approaching the possibilities of verbal language.

If Cennino's Handbook reflects the Gothic practice of Giotto and Alberti's treatise that of the Renaissance circle of Masaccio, the texts make a more startling comparison than would paintings by these two artists; and yet where they raise the same issues their opinions are more subtly differentiated than one might expect. Both write as artists addressing themselves to artists; both identify with radical developments in the art of painting; and both direct the artist to study nature-and, moreover, they mean more or less the same thing by that. If Cennino's ideas are framed within a Christian scheme of things and Alberti's within a classicizing humanism, both argue from an elevated moral plane, and in each case idealism is tempered by practical considerations. But whereas Alberti exhorts the artist to virtue because it will be good for his reputation, Cennino warns against overindulgence because it will make the hand unsteady4-and this, in its way, is typical of Cennino's whole approach. Both stress the theoretical aspects of painting and claim that they raise it towards the condition of the liberal arts, but theory is directed at different levels of pictorial structure. Cennino is preoccupied with the construction of the sign-vehicle, and though the aim is convincing naturalistic rendering, his advice comprises mainly the prescription of particular configurations of paint-marks. Signification for him is structured at the level of the signifier; and accordingly, when he expresses the fascination for pictorial illusion he shares with Alberti, he speaks of it as the transformation of the materials with which the painter works, "presenting to plain sight what does not actually exist."5

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Alberti insists rather on the relativity of the material surface of the painting and relegates it to comparative unimportance. "All these things then are learned by comparison,"6 he says. It is the comparative size of things in a painting that is important-and especially comparison with the human figure- and also comparative coloring. He criticizes the use of gold in paintings7 because it does not signify consistently, and while he never speaks of the specific substances of paint, his remarks "as a painter" on the mixing of colors and his observation that there are only four true colors corresponding to the four elements indicate a shift of taste commensurate with a reorientation of interest as compared with Cennino.8 He introduces his treatment of composition with the opinion that painting does not achieve greatness through the absolute scale of the colossus but through the interrelationship of bodies and planes depicted in an istoria.9 When Alberti says he will explain the art of painting "from the basic principles of nature,"'0 he means he will proceed from the level of the signified, and he develops his explanation into a theory of depictional signification beyond anything Cennino aspired to.

Alberti's system recognizes three dimensions of pictorial structure: "circumscription," "composition," and "the recep- tion of light." Circumscription is the "process of tracing the outlines." "In the first place, when we look at a thing, we see it as an object which occupies a space. The painter will draw around this space, and he will call this process of sketching the outline, appropriately, circumscription."' l

Outline presents a problem from the semiological point of view. To the extent that the depictional signified is an image it is indeterminate as to content, which must depend on the focus of attention we bring to common experience. Line is a syntactic device which objectifies the internal mechanisms of perception. Alberti does not draw this distinction; he simply sees "things" (which I am sure many psychologists would say is correct), but he is sensitive that line is semantically neutral, and adduces classical precedent to minimize the object of his unease without in any way transcending the mode of thought that gives rise to it: "if (circumscription) is done with a very visible line, they will look in the painting, not like the edges of surfaces, but like cracks."12 "Surfaces" ("planes" in John Spencer's translation; "superficies" in the Latin) are Alberti's ultimate unit of pictorial semantics.

Composition involves the assembly of planes into "mem- bers," of members into "bodies," and of bodies into a complete "istoria"; a detailed treatment of each proceeds in that order. In discussing the composition of surfaces into members he holds there is "no surer way than to look at Nature," and he reminds his reader of the device of a reticulated veil held up to the subject that he had recom- mended as an aid to circumscription.' 3

When it comes to the composition of larger units, however, there is an evident shift of strategy. In advising on the composition of members into bodies, he suggests that first the painter should sketch in bones, "then add the sinews and muscles, and finally clothe the bones and muscles with flesh and skin."'4 He immediately leaps to his own defense: "There will perhaps be some who will raise as an objection something I said above, namely, that the painter is not concerned with things that are not visible. They would be right to do so, except that, just as for a clothed figure we first have to draw the naked body beneath and then cover it with clothes...."

His explanation compounds the contradiction, and it cannot be resolved within the logic of the formulation. It is the inevitable outcome of the sort of tasks painting was called on to perform in the 15th century and also in classical antiquity, the twin points at which Alberti's understanding is anchored. Elaborate compositions of figures in action cannot be painted all-of-a-piece from life, nor can subjects from history or

mythology. So the empirical principle will not suffice. At a certain stage a synthetic-constructive principle must take over. The same duality is evident in Cennino; he too would have the

painter make studies from nature, but also attend to theory so that he will attain "the freedom to compose a figure standing, seated, half-man, half-horse, as he pleases according to his

imagination." 5

In its purely theoretical aspects, Alberti's perspective system will apply equally to an observed or constructed scene, but his

preliminary construction of a checkered pavement clearly envisages a synthetic approach. 6 Masaccio's Trinity, although it presents an enormous hole in the wall rather than a window and although the coffered ceiling is the nearest thing it offers to a checkered floor, yet emits some pre-echoes of Alberti's

approach. Its application of the principles of perspective is

unusually thorough-going. Hence the face of Mary is oddly distended, the features falling naturally into place only when viewed obliquely from the proper viewpoint of the whole. A reticulated grid showing through the paint (tempera) shows how this has been achieved. The drawing of the head has

evidently been transferred by that method and perhaps beyond that involved the use of Alberti's veil. The guidelines for the architecture and the cross are of a different type. These forms are evidently constructed-or reconstructed-on the surface. Guidelines relate to particular forms but extend

beyond them; the lines of the cross cut right through the head of Christ. The same duality common to Cennino and Alberti is

conspicuously demonstrated. In extending the principles of foreshortening to the figures,

Masaccio's Trinity is very exceptional. More generally, perspective provides a rule-of-thumb method for giving buildings and figures a plausible relationship to each other in

space, and perhaps beyond that a numerical integration of

patterns of surface and depth. Cennino recommends a

comparable basis of geometric guidelines, though their aim is to "arrange your areas always even and equal."17 Leonardo's

drawing for the Adoration of the Magi may be more typical in this respect; significantly the final work does not have a checkered pavement.

The notion of composition in pictures requires an important distinction in relation to the composition of verbal language. As "pervasiveness of semantic function," in Meyer Schapiro's words, is "distinctive for the picture-sign,"'8 so the range of

syntactic transformation applicable to the same fact is restricted to such decisions as whether brushstrokes should flow along or across a form. In a portrait head that may be

enough to flatter imperfect features; but this is my suggestion, not Alberti's. Alberti, characteristically insensitive to the level of the signifier, advises that a person with a long misshapen head should wear a hat and a man with one eye should be

painted from that side.'9 Pericles in a helmet is a different fact from Pericles without it. Accordingly, composition for

Alberti, in its larger units, is not the manipulation of the

"language" of painting, but of the facts of pictorial content

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within the tolerances of a literary record. To a point, this is inevitable in the nature of the case, and yet the iconographic constancies of medieval Christian art acknowledge implicitly the authority of the visual account. Alberti's radical approach and academic theory-rather more than actual practice-shift the basis of authority to the verbal record.

The question of Alberti's sources has received a good deal of attention. Creighton Gilbert produces strong arguments that the form of Alberti's treatise is dependent on Horace,20 and John Spencer amasses a lot of evidence to show that its general attitude and many specific details reflect the writings of Cicero.21 I do not wish to suggest further sources. Alberti claims that his theory of pictorial structure is "taken from the basic principles of nature."22 Yet comparison with Aristotle is germane, to the extent that he alone among the writers of antiquity produced a statement (though fragmentary and incidental) of the nature of pictorial signification.

In the opening sentences of the Poetics Aristotle offers criteria for categorizing types of imitation: "they may differ from each other in three ways: either because the imitation is carried on by different means or because it is concerned with different kinds of objects or because it is presented, not in the same, but in a different manner."23 He includes among his examples, those who "imitate many different objects by using color and form to represent them,"24 but the general object of the imitative arts is the same: they imitate "men involved in action" and may differ rather in that men must either be noble or base "since human character regularly conforms to these distinctions."25 In citing color and form rather than paint as means Aristotle is in line with the semiological distinction between signifier and sign-vehicle, and later he acknowledges the dependence of signified on generalization from experience: "if he has not happened to see the object previously he will not find any pleasure in the imitation qua imitation, but rather in the workmanship or coloring or something similar."26 He further qualifies that the sign itself may give pleasure, even where the things depicted (corpses, for instance) are not themselves pleasing.27

Alberti's appreciation is at the level of object-content. When he speaks of "beauty" it is in relation to "harmony and grace in bodies,"28 when he says that moderate variety is pleasing, it is moderate variety in the accumulation of objects with which he is concerned,29 and when he talks of the emotional response to paintings he assumes a one-to-one empathy with the emotions of depicted characters.30

Alberti's istoria (like Aristotle's arts of imitation) is to represent the actions of men. Movement is central to Alberti. He wishes moderate and graceful display of movement in inanimate things, the branches of trees, the fall of draperies, and the forms of human hair; he wants variety in the movements of bodies (again in moderation) and he specifies seven ways in which bodies might move. But beyond all that he wants the movements of the soul to be made known by the movements of the body-and this, in turn, will move the soul of the spectator. That is the ultimate test. Variety will give pleasure and will captivate the eye, but the istoria must then move the soul if it is to be worthy of praise and admiration.31 In everything else Alberti urges moderation but he wants figures to display their emotions "as clearly as possible,"32 "the greatest emotions must be expressed by the most powerful physical indications."33

We see the seeds of the declamatory gestures of Mannerist and Baroque art, and this is inevitable where depiction would signify beyond visual appearances. Alberti acknowledges the difficulty in representing laughing faces "to avoid their appearing tearful rather than happy,"34 but he obviously expects the painter to be capable of far more subtle differentiations. He cites classical precedents where "Eu- phranor... in his portrait of Alexander Paris... did the face and expression in such a way that you could recognize him simultaneously as the judge of the goddesses, the lover of Helen and the slayer of Achilles";35 and elsewhere, "someone painted Ulysses in such a way that you could tell he was not really mad but only pretending."36 Even the rendering of movement in its physical aspects, however, implies expanding the range of what can properly be depicted.

Where Alberti recognizes these difficulties, his solution is to modify content. The puffing head of Zephyrus in the clouds may explain the movements of draperies,37 as a pointing or admonishing figure may cue us to the action of the picture.38 Among the painters who came after Alberti, Pollaiuolo's study of the dynamics of the human figure through the dissection of corpses is in line with Alberti's ideas, and it causes him to accentuate the structures of bone and muscle which determine the mechanics of locomotion.

Botticelli is often inaccurate in the positions of bodies in movement, but conveys a sense of movement through the flowing lines with which his figures are drawn. Induced movements of the observing eye extend the limits of depiction through a process of spontaneous analogy. In the sketchier drawings of Pollaiuolo the evident speed of the artist's hand reads in a similar way. That Alberti speaks of "reception of light" rather than color as the third part of painting indicates his attention is again directed at the content of the signified (the achievement of relief through light and shade is primary) but he does add in this case that "If red stands between blue and green, it somehow enhances their beauty as well as its own. White lends gaiety, not only when placed between gray and yellow, but almost to any color. But dark colors acquire a certain dignity when between light colors, and similar light colors may be placed with good effect among dark."39 In each of these instances, auxiliary significations are developed out of characteristics of the signifier incidental to the institutional- ized principle of visual resemblance.

All this is a far cry from the empirical tenets from which Alberti's treatise sets out, but towards the end he again takes up the theme of drawing from nature, recommending the inclusion in the istoria of portraits of well-known people who will be recognized and draw attention to the picture. The figure is then to have a dual identity, in terms of that recognition and the role he performs in the action.

The theme of painting's aspiration to the condition of poetry through an inversion of Horace's dictum "Ut Pictura Poesis" is treated in depth by Rensselaer Lee. Le Brun's Treatise on the Passions marks an extreme in the inevitable reduction of reality to a system of stereotypes,40 but Lee traces the story later than that to the objections of Lessing.41 He might have gone further still to the Realism and Impressionism of the 19th century and ultimately to the inception of modern art.

Alberti, by his own admission, was an amateur painter;42 his contribution was mainly a theoretical art, and of the works

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by which he exemplifies his thesis all but one43 were known to him through literary descriptions. His admission to deriving sufficient pleasure from reading written accounts of pictorial "invention" seems to parallel Aristotle's statement that "the power of tragedy is felt even without a dramatic performance and actors."44 We might think of Saussure's reasons for equating the linguistic signifier with sound-image rather than sound: that the image as it is recalled to the mind still carries the same signification.45 But more fundamentally, we might detect an approach to art in terms of conceptual understand- ing as opposed to the immediate experience of images. This too is a feature of Alberti's treatise which gives it a relevance alongside the most recent developments in contemporary art.

I would like to express my thanks for help with the semiological aspects of this study to Dr. Roman Retman of the University of Guelph's Department of

Languages and to Mr. Jack Horn and Dr. Roald Nasgaard of the Fine Art

Department for help with its art historical aspects. I would also like to mention Dr. Arnold Noach of the University of Leeds and

the work we did some years ago on the space composition of Masaccio's Trinity. It was in the course of that study (never formulated for publication) that the method of Masaccio's preliminary construction became known to me. To him, my thanks are due. 1 Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, ed. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehave in collaboration with Albert Riedlinger, trans. Wade Baskin, New York, 1966, p. 66. This work was first published posthumously in 1915 from lecture notes compiled by his students. 2 Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting and On Sculpture, trans. Cecil Grayson, London, 1972, p. 49. 3 Ibid., p. 55.

Cennino d'Andrea Cennini da Colle di Val d'Elsa, II Libro Dell'Arte, Vol. II, trans. Daniel V. Thompson, Jr., New Haven, 1933, p. 16. 5 Ibid., p. 1: "... and this is an occupation known as painting, which calls for

imagination, and skill of hand, in order to discover things not seen, hiding themselves under the shadow of natural objects, and to fix them with the hand, presenting to plain sight what does not actually exist." 6 Alberti, trans. Grayson, p. 53. 7 Ibid., p. 93. 8 Ibid., p. 47. 9 Ibid., p. 71.

Ibid., p. 37. 11 Ibid., p. 67. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid., pp. 71, 73. 14 Ibid., p. 75.

15 Cennino, p. 2. 16 Alberti, trans. Grayson, p. 57. 17 Cennino, pp. 42-43. 18 Meyer Schapiro, "Field and Vehicle in Image-Signs" in Sign-Language-Cul- ture, The Hague, 1970, p. 499. 19 Alberti, trans. Grayson, pp. 79-81. 20 Creighton E. Gilbert, "Antique frameworks for Renaissance Art theory" in

Marsyas, Vol. 3, 1943-5. 21John R. Spencer, "Ut Rhetorica Pictura" in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. XX, 1966, pp. 26-44. 22 Alberti, trans. Grayson, p. 57. 23 Aristotle, Poetics, trans. Leon Golden, New Jersey, 1968, 1447", p. 3. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid.. 1448a, p. 4.

2 Ibid., 1448b, p. 7. 27 Ibid.

28 Alberti, trans. Grayson, p. 73. 29 Ibid., p. 79. 30 Ibid., p. 81. 1 Ibid., p. 79.

32 Ibid., p. 81. 33 Ibid., p. 85.

34 Ibid., p. 81. 35 Ibid., p. 81. 36 Ibid., p. 75. 37 Ibid., p. 87. 38 Ibid., p. 83.

39 Ibid., p. 93. 40 Rensselaer W. Lee, Ut Pictura Poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting, New York, 1967, pp. 27-31. 41 Ibid., p. 23. 42 Alberti, trans. Grayson, p. 67: "Whenever I devote myself to painting for

pleasure..." 43 Giotto's Navicela mentioned in Alberti, trans. Grayson, p. 83. 44 Aristotle, 1450b, p. 14. 45 Saussure, p. 66.

Eric Cameron is an Associate Professor in the Department of Fine Art at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.

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