Four Books on Human Proportion

...even everything else would find the highest praise. This was especially admired by the most celebrated painters, who, being very well-versed in such matters, were not ignorant of the difficulty involved. At this point, I cannot pass over in silence what happened between him and Giovanni Bellini A leading Venetian painter and master of the Venetian school, known for his use of color and light. Bellini was in Venice, and his reputation in this art was excellent throughout all of Italy. When Albrecht had come there, he easily formed a friendship with him, and—as usually happens—they began to show each other their works. While Albrecht candidly admired and placed great value on everything of Bellini’s, Bellini himself honestly praised many things in Albrecht’s works, but especially the fineness of the hairs Dürer was famous for his ability to paint individual strands of hair with incredible precision. It happened by chance that they were talking together about art, and when their conversation ended, Bellini said, "Albrecht, would you be kind and do a small favor for a friend?" Albrecht replied, "You shall have it, if indeed it is something I am able to provide." Then Bellini said, "I desire to receive from you as a gift one of the brushes penicillis Fine brushes made of animal hair, used for detailed work with which you are accustomed to draw such fine hairs." Albrecht, without delay, brought out many brushes similar to those of others and of the kind that Bellini himself used, and told him to choose the ones that pleased him most, or to take them all if he preferred. But Bellini, thinking himself deceived, said, "I did not mean these, but rather those with which you are accustomed to express several hairs and bristles with a single stroke Bellini assumed Dürer used a special "multi-tipped" brush to achieve his realistic textures, which must be spread out and separated by a wide gap. Otherwise, in such great length, such a perfect equality of curves and distances could not be maintained." Albrecht replied, "I use no others than these, and to prove this to you, you may watch." Taking up one of the brushes he had laid out, he produced very long and wavy hairs, such as are mostly seen on women, with a perfectly steady order and method while Bellini looked on in astonishment. Bellini later confessed to many that no mortal man’s word could have made him believe what he had seen with his own eyes.

Bellini

Mantegna

Andrea Mantegna An Italian painter and engraver known for his sculptural style and mastery of perspective, who flourished in Mantua. He had recalled painting to a certain severity and law, for which he earned the highest praise, particularly for excavating broken and fragmented statues and setting them up as examples for the art. In his works, everything is hard and rigid, as his hand was not yet accustomed to following the intelligence and readiness of his mind. Yet, in art, nothing is considered better or more perfect than those works. Therefore, while he was lying ill in Mantua and heard that Albrecht was in Italy, he took care to have him summoned to him quickly. He intended to instruct Albrecht's facility and certainty of hand with his own knowledge and theory of things. For he had not infrequently complained in familiar conversation that either he lacked that facility, or Albrecht lacked his knowledge. Albrecht, delaying nothing and putting all other business aside as soon as he received the message, immediately prepared for the journey; but Andrea had died before Albrecht could reach Mantua. Dürer used to say that nothing more sorrowful had happened to him in his life. For although Albrecht was the greatest, his great and noble mind always yearned for something even higher.

we have said, he expressed on the linen itself with the brush, with no preliminary sketches arranged beforehand, as is customary. The hairs of the beard are almost a cubit long About 18 to 20 inches, highlighting the extreme detail of the work, drawn so exquisitely and skillfully, with such consistent separation and style throughout, that the better someone understood art, the more they would admire it, and consider it incredible that no other aid had assisted the hand in depicting them. Furthermore, no filth or unseemliness exists in his works, as the thoughts of his most chaste mind naturally shrank from all such things. O, an artist worthy of such success! Then, how similar, how infallible, and how true were the expressions of living faces, which they now call likenesses contrafacta original: "contrafacta"; a term for portraits that "counterfeit" or exactly mirror nature? He achieved all these things because he had brought back practice to art and reason—a method hitherto unknown and unheard of, at least by our local painters. For which of them was there who could explain the theory of his own work, even that for which he had achieved the greatest fame?