Page 108 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

63
painted before/' The piece of paper protruding
from the book of the doctor on the left indicates
that it was the opus cinque dierum (work of five
days). Diirer challenged the Italians, and espe-
cially Leonardo, on their own territory. He
employed facial expressions and manual ges-
tures to convey the temperaments and "motions
of the mind" of each participant in what Alberti
would have called a historia. He consciously
enhanced Christ's youthful beauty in juxtaposi-
tion to the gnarled heads and hands of the older
disputants, precisely in the manner recom-
mended by Leonardo: "I say that in narrative
paintings you should closely mingle direct
opposites, because they offer a great contrast to
each other, and the more so the more they are
adjacent. Thus, have the ugly next to the beau-
tiful/' 64 To the "learning" of the Italians, Diirer
consciously added his own manual gifts, demon-
strating his unmatched graphic facility with
descriptive and expressive line, the skill Man-
tegna had so envied.

lett:
fig. 23. Leonardo da Vinci, Five Grotesque Heads.
c. 1495, P en an d ink. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth
n, Royal Library, Windsor Castle
above right:
fig. 24. Albrecht Diirer, Study of Fifteen Con-
structed Heads, c. 1513, pen and ink, fol. 9/r,
Dresden Sketchbook. Sachsische Landesbibliothek,
Dresden
above left:
fig. 25. Albrecht Diirer, Christ among the Doctors.
1506, oil on panel. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection,
Lugano

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