- Leon Battista Alberti
The coffee is freshly brewed (working on my barista skills over here), but the books are quite old. Older than this country. But I love when old books lean into this modern age speaking to the reader from the past in ways we don't pay attention to these days. Funnily, I have read these two books right alongside each other, and they are roughly written from the same time period, around 1400-1435.
I have been aching to go to one of the amazing art museums I have been to in England. My favourites being The Ashmolean in Oxford, the V&A in London, and the National Gallery in London. Note, I am not including the libraries in this listing - I am thinking of art and artifacts. Books and libraries are their own category which I need not even say how I yearn for places like The Bodleian in Oxford and the British Library in London all the time. I need to go back to The British Museum as I only saw some of the ground floor on my one visit there.
Painting was honoured by our ancestors with this special distinction that, whereas all other artists were called craftsman, the painter alone was not counted among their number.
When I stumbled on this slim volume On Painting by Leon Battista Alberti, it felt providential to meet with a master of the art of painting, to give me just a glimpse of that world I am seeking to enjoy more of. The cover painting, by the way is "The Hunt in the Forest" by Paolo Uccello, which is in The Ashmolean, so I have seen on several occasions in person. From 1435, Alberti sets out his theories of dimension and perspective on painting. It is written for the painter, and was hugely influential to the Italian Renaissance artists and Leonardo da Vinci later on. It brought me back to geometry class in high school, which I enjoyed, and he notes that you cannot be a painter without having skills and knowledge of geometry. After a geometry lesson, he details some of his thoughts on the conviction that it's our human duty to make praiseworthy and beautiful things. These creations arise mathematically, yet are rooted in nature.
Alberti adopted what may be broadly described as a Christianized Stoic viewpoint in his advocacy of the inherent and divinely ordained rationale within nature as the ultimate source for our standards in art as in life.
Delightfully revisiting Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in a translation I haven't read in recent years, by J.R.R. Tolkien. The version I have read more recently a few times is Simon Armitage's translation, which he signed for me when I met him at his talk in Oxford years ago. I loved Simon's style of his translation, which focused more on the alliterative qualities of this anonymous ancient poem dated around 1400. Tolkien's translation still embraces the alliterative qualities and yet in true Tolkien style there is a beauty and flow to the language, so it feels very different.
Then they looked for a long while, on that lord gazing;
for every man marvelled what it could mean indeed
that horseman and horse such a hue should come by
as to grow green as the grass, and greener it seemed,
than green enamel on gold glowing far brighter.
All stared that stood there and stole up nearer,
watching him and wondering what in the world he would do.
It is so interesting to read the same poem by different translators. Each version invokes a different feeling of the poem, language, story, and emotion. Sir Gawain is a great example of that. His journey is emotional, as he travels into the unknown he has to face his fears, overcome temptation, and face the huge green knight in the end carrying a guilt with him. At the centre is this medieval idea of morals and chivalry with a Christian perspective, in contrast to the world and its morals. Gawain had to fight that as he was pushed into situations that challenged him. He stayed honourable and true, going against the grain and ultimately that is what saves his life.
No comments:
Post a Comment