The philosophy and theory of art have always oscillated between the abstract reflections of philosophers and the lived experience of artists. Throughout the history of Western thought, art theory has generally been presented as the product of philosophers who themselves lacked direct experience in artistic creation. Historical evidence, however, suggests that many of the most significant theoretical developments in art originated from the minds and creative practices of artists themselves.
The Renaissance marks a decisive turning point in this transformation. During this period, the artist was elevated from the status of a skilled craftsman (techne) to that of an intellectual, a theorist, and a creative thinker. Through a close reading of Leonardo da Vinci's Paragone, this essay seeks to demonstrate how Leonardo, perhaps for the first time, presented painting not merely as a manual craft but as a rational discipline possessing its own independent theoretical foundations—a discipline capable of generating the internal philosophy of art from within artistic practice itself.
A. Leonardo da Vinci and the Birth of an Internal Philosophy of Art
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) is widely regarded as the archetypal "Renaissance Man." Beyond being one of history's greatest painters, he was an accomplished architect, sculptor, mathematician, engineer, and natural philosopher. In Art Through the Ages, Helen Gardner (1926) describes him in these words:
"His mind and personality seem superhuman, while he himself remains an elusive and mysterious figure."
An equally remarkable testimony comes from Giorgio Vasari (d. 1574), whose Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects constitutes the first comprehensive history of Western art—roughly contemporaneous, in its own cultural context, with Qāḍī Aḥmad Munshī's Golestān-e Honar in Safavid Iran. Vasari writes:
"The greatest gifts are often seen, in the course of nature, to be showered by celestial influences upon human beings; and sometimes, in a manner surpassing nature itself, beauty, grace, and talent are united beyond measure in one single person. Whatever such a person turns his attention to becomes so divine that it clearly reveals itself as a gift bestowed by God rather than something acquired through human effort or art. All people recognized this truth in Leonardo da Vinci, who, besides his extraordinary physical beauty, possessed infinite grace in all his actions, and whose genius enabled him to solve the most difficult problems with effortless ease." (Vasari, 1912/1401 SH)
Vasari's testimony carries particular significance because he was Leonardo's near contemporary and thus provides a firsthand account of the artist's extraordinary reputation. Yet one of the most remarkable aspects of Leonardo's legacy lies elsewhere. At a time when artists were generally regarded as practitioners of manual skill rather than authors of theoretical discourse, Leonardo produced an extraordinary body of writings devoted to the theory of art.
These manuscripts announce the emergence of a philosophy arising from within artistic practice itself. They embody a rare harmony between artistic creation and theoretical reflection, revealing the unity of practice and thought within the intellectual world of this great Renaissance master. For this reason, Leonardo's writings may be regarded as among the earliest attempts in Western art history to formulate a philosophy of art originating not outside artistic practice but from the very experience of artistic creation—a philosophy born from the artist's own reflection upon the nature of art rather than from the speculations of philosophers alone.
It is precisely for this reason that Lionello Venturi, in History of Art Criticism (1936), objects to the tendency of histories of aesthetics to overlook figures such as Alberti and Leonardo while searching exclusively among philosophers for the foundations of aesthetic thought:
"Alberti and Leonardo produced the most important artistic theories of the Renaissance, yet histories of aesthetics and philosophy assign them only a negligible place."
Venturi—whose assessment is echoed by Władysław Tatarkiewicz in History of Aesthetics, where Leonardo is likewise recognized as a major theorist of art—continues:
"The originality of Alberti's and Leonardo's aesthetics lies in the new definition they offered of art—a definition fundamentally different from both Aristotle's conception of art as imitation of nature and Plotinus' understanding of art as divine illumination. For them, the artist does not dissolve into God; rather, he becomes a creator who understands nature according to the principles of the human mind instead of merely imitating it. Through painting, the artist demonstrates his knowledge of nature by means of manual activity. Art therefore claims both the task of scientific knowledge and the status of an intellectual enterprise. Since nature has replaced God as the object of art, the human mind likewise replaces God as the source of art. No comparable theory can be found in Renaissance poetry, for poetry was never assigned the same scientific function as painting."
I share Venturi's conviction that a substantial part of the philosophy of art resides in the thought and creative practice of artists themselves. This mode of reflection deserves to be articulated, for it provides the most authentic mirror of artistic creation. Such an approach undoubtedly comes closer to the truth of art than theories formulated by philosophers who remain detached from the lived reality of artistic practice.
B. Paragone: Painting as a Science
Paragone, one of the most important theoretical texts of the Renaissance, is the title of the opening chapter of Leonardo da Vinci's Treatise on Painting, although it has also been published independently. A Persian translation of the text appeared under the title Paragone: A Comparison of the Arts (1817/1398 SH). The central concern of this work is Leonardo's effort to demonstrate the scientific status of painting—or, more precisely, its rational and intellectual character. As he famously declares, "Painting is a mental thing (cosa mentale) and an intellectual activity." Michelangelo expressed a remarkably similar view when he stated: "One paints with the mind, not with the hands."
The Italian word Paragone originally referred to the touchstone used to test the purity of gold. Like many technical and scholarly terms of Renaissance Europe, its deeper linguistic roots may be traced to Greek. While the Renaissance usage primarily conveys the idea of "comparison," it also preserves the older metaphor of a criterion or touchstone by which value is assessed. This dual meaning is particularly appropriate in Leonardo's text, for his purpose is not merely to compare the arts but to present painting itself as the criterion by which the true excellence of the other arts may be measured. It is therefore plausible that nineteenth-century editors, including Guglielmo Manzi, deliberately retained the title Paragone in order to evoke both meanings simultaneously: comparison and touchstone.
In its present form, Paragone consists of twenty-eight brief notes, all directed toward a single objective: demonstrating that painting is a genuine science. Leonardo opens the work with the fundamental question: "Is painting a science or not?" He immediately answers this question by constructing a concise yet profound argument based upon the geometrical principles of point, line, and plane:
"The first principle of the science of painting is the point; the second, the line; the third, the surface; and the fourth, the body clothed by that surface."
This seemingly elementary sequence reveals Leonardo's conviction that painting rests upon demonstrable rational principles rather than manual dexterity alone. His profound mastery of geometry, mathematics, optics, and the science of vision—including theories concerning visual rays and the processes of perception—enabled him to establish painting upon scientific foundations. His conception of pictorial knowledge is inseparable from the mathematical ordering of visible reality.
Leonardo's scientific outlook becomes even clearer in the second note, where he compares poetry and painting:
"The relation between imagination and reality is like that between shadow and substance; such is also the relation between poetry and painting. Poetry employs words to evoke things within the imagination, whereas painting presents things directly to the eye, so that they appear almost as if they were truly present."
Here Leonardo advances an epistemological argument rather than merely an aesthetic preference. Painting enjoys superiority because vision provides a more immediate and reliable mode of knowledge than verbal description. Images communicate through direct perception, whereas poetry depends upon the mediation of language and the constructive power of imagination.
Leonardo's encyclopedic command of the sciences of his age is particularly evident in the sixth note, devoted to the scope of painting as a science—a theme that recurs throughout Paragone. He writes:
"The science of painting embraces all the colours of surfaces, the forms of bodies clothed by those surfaces, and the varying degrees of diminution corresponding to the increasing distance of objects. This science is the mother of perspective, that is, of the science of visual lines. Perspective itself consists of three parts..."
These remarks demonstrate that, already in the late fifteenth century, Leonardo regarded painting as a comprehensive scientific discipline grounded in mathematics, optics, geometry, and the laws governing visual perception. Perspective is therefore not merely a technical device but the rational structure that makes pictorial knowledge possible.
Leonardo continues this argument in the seventh note, entitled "The Most Useful of the Sciences." Here he invokes the Aristotelian concept of common sense (sensus communis), one of the central notions of De Anima. More importantly, he characterizes painting as a noble science whose highest utility lies in making the sacred present before human beings. He writes:
"When the veil covering a sacred image is drawn aside, the multitude gathered there immediately falls to the ground in reverence before the painting. They pray before the one represented in it, asking for the restoration of their health and for eternal salvation, as though the divine figure were truly living and present before their eyes."
For Leonardo, therefore, painting is not merely an instrument of representation. It possesses the extraordinary capacity to render absent realities present. Through the painted image, what is physically absent acquires an experiential presence capable of transforming the viewer's consciousness.
Leonardo's observation inevitably recalls Martin Heidegger's celebrated discussion of the work of art in The Origin of the Work of Art. Heidegger writes:
"It is by virtue of the temple that the god is present in the temple... In the work, a bringing-forth occurs through which beings emerge from concealedness into presence. For this reason, the Greek word techne signifies not mere craftsmanship but a mode of revealing."
Whether Heidegger was directly influenced by Leonardo's Paragone cannot be established; no documentary evidence supports such a claim. Nevertheless, the affinity between Leonardo's understanding of painting as making the sacred present and Heidegger's conception of the artwork as a site of unconcealment (aletheia) is striking. Both thinkers understand the work of art not as a passive representation but as an event through which reality manifests itself. This intellectual convergence, even in the absence of demonstrable historical influence, offers a promising avenue for future research in the philosophy of art.
C. Concluding Remarks
The opening editorial of an academic journal should awaken the reader's curiosity and inspire further inquiry. For this reason, I shall conclude this introductory reflection here and invite readers to engage directly with Leonardo da Vinci's Paragone.
The purpose of this brief essay has been not only to introduce one of the Renaissance's most significant theoretical texts, but also to emphasize a broader intellectual point: Paragone is far more than a treatise defending the superiority of painting. It represents one of the earliest and most ambitious attempts to establish an internal philosophy of art—a philosophy that emerges from the lived experience of artistic creation rather than from external philosophical speculation.
Leonardo's central achievement lies in redefining painting as a mode of knowledge. He rejects the view that painting is merely a manual craft or technical skill and instead presents it as a rational, scientific, and cognitive discipline grounded in mathematics, geometry, optics, and the laws of visual perception. In Leonardo's thought, artistic practice and intellectual inquiry become inseparable; the painter is not simply an artisan but an investigator of nature whose work constitutes a genuine form of knowledge.
From this perspective, Leonardo da Vinci deserves to be regarded not only as one of history's greatest artists but also as one of the earliest modern theorists of the philosophy of art—even if, as Lionello Venturi lamented, the history of aesthetics has largely neglected his contribution. His writings demonstrate that art theory need not originate exclusively from philosophers; it can arise from the artist's own reflective engagement with the creative process.
In the next issue of this journal, I shall continue this discussion by examining Leonardo's comparison of painting with music and sculpture, again drawing upon Paragone, in order to further illuminate his understanding of the hierarchy and distinctive capacities of the arts.