The Strokes of the Master
In his 1436 treatise On Painting, humanist theorist and architect Leon Battista Alberti writes that the painter must “make all the parts true to his model but also add beauty.” He goes on to explain how the painter is to “add beauty” not through abstraction, but by integrating the most beautiful parts he has observed into a single composition. This is why Alberti and Renaissance artists in general studied anatomy from the bones out, and also why Alberti emphasized the study of geometry. As a student of anatomy, the artist learns the relationship between the parts of a figure and how the parts cooperate to produce movement, so that he can integrate the most beautiful parts into a convincingly realistic figure. As a student of geometry, the painter can situate figures in a convincing illusion of space. The result is a work of art that portrays ideal beauty through the particulars of nature.
This approach—perfecting nature through anatomy and geometry rather than abstraction—perfectly communicates the religion of the Incarnation and Resurrection. To paraphrase the Christmas Preface, we are borne up to the love of the invisible God through His visible incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. Grace perfects nature. The glorified body is not an abstraction. I see the hand of Providence in the development of philosophy and art in the Christian West. Giotto, Fra Angelico, Michelangelo, Rubens, Bernini, Velázquez—despite their differences, all participated in the fecund tradition of perfecting the natural by “adding beauty.” Yet few are working within this tradition today.
That is why I am dedicated to researching and reviving Renaissance and Baroque practices, and trying to communicate those techniques to young artists. You cannot go to art school or an atelier and study from a Renaissance master. You have to cobble together an education from a variety of sources—books, classes, mentors, direct engagement with works of art—it is not unlike crafting a painting through the integration of beautiful parts. I am grateful to have a background in mathematics. Studying and teaching the theory and beauty of number and proportion trained me to appreciate order in nature, and to construct order on a canvas. I learned some anatomy from books, but I also needed life drawing classes because capturing a living, three-dimensional body is much harder than copying a static, two-dimensional image. And you need to get under the skin too. In art school, I took a class in anatomy for artists in which we built up the ligaments, muscles, and tendons of a knee joint with clay. Only then could I really see the subtlety of the underlying forms through the veil of skin. I learned to see light and color by studying with Boston School master Paul Ingbretson. And I have copied master drawings from books and master paintings in person.
Standing before a Ribera or a Zurbarán and trying to copy it is invaluable. You start to recognize all the practical choices the artist made—the size of brush, the overlaying of pigments, the adjustment of the composition—and you can then incorporate those choices into your own original works. It is also invaluably humbling. The brush fumbles to retread the paths of the original. It overworks some, elides others, loses its place, but sometimes stumbles into the strokes of the master. Perhaps a seminarian feels something similar when learning the Mass.
