Somewhat apples and oranges aren't they? (Blunt)

     The readings by Blunt illustrate a loose history and artistic philosophy of the two greatest Renaissance masters. Michelangelo and Leonardo both endeavor to portray beauty, and both believe that great work first exists in the imagination of the artist, however, their respective approaches to their work are very different.

     Blunt consistently compares both artists approach to the human figure and the natural world as it differs to Alberti’s canon, though direct comparison between Michelangelo and Leonardo’s innate differences is more satisfying. Blunt’s ample use of Michelangelo’s poetry to demonstrate his attitude’s towards his own practice is countered by Leonardo’s own word’s “… painting is to poetry what reality is to shadow.” The diaphanous quality of poetry, and the two artists attitude toward it is pleasingly indicative of their most glaring differences between them.

     Both artists were trained by quattrocento masters, educated in the Humanist fashion, and had long-lived artistic careers. It is their interpretation of what is, and how to portray beauty, that stands out in the readings, and seems likely a product of their respective religious belief systems, or lack thereof.

     Michelangelo’s Catholic faith drove him. It was his spirituality and his need to translate that spiritual belief into physical form that determined and informed his work. He saw the God reflected in the human (male) body, (indicative in his lack of interest in landscape) and used art to reveal “a spiritual state’. He believed the religious artist must be “…both a master (of art) and a saint”, and believed in the divine inspiration of the artist. He opposed mathematical methods (like those of Leonardo), and portrayed an ideal of beauty in his work, that ideal determined by his own spiritual state. Michelangelo’s was an extremely productive artist, and likely this production was in part due to a need to translate a basically instinctual interpretation of a (spiritual) world, an interpretation that evolved with the changing state of the Catholic church and indeed, as he himself grew older.

     Leonardo believed in the truth of “the experiment”, and his work was based on these scientifically “true” principals. He eschewed idealistic portrayal for that which “…agrees most exactly with the thing imitated.” His portrayal of the world was based on intense observation and study of real world phenomena, (uncomplicated by religious concerns) and this study obviously became a means unto itself, and with unlimited subject matter, it is unsurprising that his many treatises on various subjects went uncompleted. Leonardo’s intense observation of the physical world lead to groundbreaking techniques in realistic painting, such as atmospheric perspective.

      While Leonardo’s scientific inquiries, produced incredibly innovative art, (and advanced the fields of both art and science.) it may be that Michelangelo had the greater challenge, in interpreting and indeed fusing both a physical and spiritual reality.