“Now, in order to claim some knowledge of painting, Vitruvius speaks of the consideration of the perfect human body and about how good sculptors and painters in order to make it give it a height of ten faces, and I say that according to them they have read and they say that this proportion is based on knowledge of measurement and that it happens that without it it is not possible to have proportion or consideration because those who are not cognizant of this do not count.”

— El Greco

quoted by Liane Lefaivre and Alexander Tzonis, in The Emergence of Modern Architecture: A Documentary History from 1000 to 1810 https://books.google.com/books?id=4xB9k7-Neb8C&pg=PT184; Routledge, New York, 2004) p. 165

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Now, in order to claim some knowledge of painting, Vitruvius speaks of the consideration of the perfect human body and …" by El Greco?

El Greco 9

Greek painter, sculptor and architect 1541–1614

Related quotes

“The Ancients, having taken into consideration the rigorous construction of the human body, elaborated all their works, as especially their holy temples, according to these proportions; for they found here the two principal figures without which no project is possible: the perfection of the circle, the principle of all regular bodies, and the equilateral square.”

Luca Pacioli (1445–1517) Italian father of accounting

From the book De divina proportione

“Proportion applies to sculpture as to painting; perspective determines the contour; chiaroscuro gives relief through the disposition of lights and shadows in their relationship with the background; color gives the appearance of life... The colorists, the men who unite all the phases of painting, have to establish, at once and from the beginning, everything that is proper and essential to their art. They have to mass things in with color, even as the sculptor does with clay, marble or stone; their sketch, like that of the sculptor, must also render proportion, perspective effect, and color.”

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) French painter

15 April 1851, as quoted in Artists on Art – from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, pp. 230 – 231
1831 - 1863, Delacroix' 'Journal' (1847 – 1863)

“I am just an ordinary human being, with two legs, two eyes, and I work, and I voluntary put myself here so that I can reveal this Knowledge to people, I think because people need it. People have forgotten what this Knowledge is. And I am just teaching them perfectness, and that’s why they called me Perfect Master. And as a matter of fact, I am Perfect Master because I can reveal them this peace. Not saying that I am bodily perfect. I’m not saying I’m... I am perfect because of this reason or that reason, but simply one reason: because I can reveal them this Knowledge, which is perfect.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

London, UK 13 July, 1973
1970s

“Pilgrim's Progress, about a man that left his family, it didn't say why. I read considerable in it now and then. The statements was interesting, but tough.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), Ch. 17

“You don't paint the way someone, by observing his life, thinks you have to paint, you paint the way you have to in order to give. That's life itself, and someone will look and say it is the product of knowing, but it has nothing to do with knowing, it has to do with giving. The question about knowing will naturally be wrong. When you've finished giving, the look surprises you as anyone else. Some painters talking about painting are like a lot of kids dancing at a prom. An hour later you are too shy to get out on the floor.”

Franz Kline (1910–1962) American painter

1950's, Evergreen Review, 1958

“[I wish]to engrave and distribute [the prints] for the benefit and knowledge and use of painters and sculptors and other knowledge-able persons.”

Titian (1488–1576) Italian painter

official document, 1567; as quoted by Bruce Kohl in Titian and Venetian Painting, 1450-1590; publishers Westview Press, 1999, p. 117
In 1567 Titian applied to the Venetian senate for a fifteen-year copyright privilege for engravings, made after his work. The Dutch artist Cornelis Cort produced prints after Titian's work, all made in collaboration, in 1555-56 and 1571-72
1541-1576

“A man’s body and the needs of his body are now everywhere treated with a tender indulgence. Is the thinking mind then, to be the only thing that is never to obtain the slightest measure of consideration or protection, to say nothing of respect?”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

“On Noise”
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)

“Some… agreeing with Philolaus, believe that the proportion is called harmonic because it attends upon all geometric harmony, and they say that 'geometric harmony' is the cube because it is harmonized in all three dimensions, being the product of a number thrice multiplied together. For in every cube this proportion is mirrored; there are in every cube 12 sides, 8 angles and 6 faces; hence 8, the [harmonic] mean between 6 and 12, is according to harmonic proportion…”

Nicomachus (60–120) Ancient Greek mathematician

this harmonic proportion may be expressed as <math>\frac{12}{6}=\frac{12-8}{8-6}</math> or inversely.
Nicomachus of Gerasa: Introduction to Arithmetic (1926)

“I say that it is possible to have some knowledge without the help of the senses. For in the Divine Mind all knowledge exists from eternity, and not only is there in it certain knowledge of universals but also of all singulars. …Similarly, intelligence receiving irradiation from the primary light see all knowable things, both universal and singulars, in the primary light itself. Moreover, the Divine Mind, in the reflection of its intelligence upon Itself, knows the very things which come after Itself, because it is itself their cause. Therefore, those who are without any senses have true knowledge.”

Robert Grosseteste (1175–1253) English bishop and philosopher

Commentarius in Posteriorum Analyticorum Libros (c. 1217-1220)

“Order gives due measure to the members of a work considered separately, and symmetrical agreement to the proportions of the whole. It is an adjustment according to quantity. By this I mean the selection of modules from the members of the work itself and, starting from these individual parts of members, constructing the whole work to correspond.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book I, Chapter II, Sec. 2

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

El Greco 9

Related quotes

Related topics