Battle of the Nudes

than painting alone because the artist becomes more intimately familiar with the
relief of an object and thus will paint it more accurately. 31 In book 2, section 40,
under a discussion of "historia" and the tendency of overambitious artists to show
off by packing too many figures into their compositions, Alberti seems to prescribe
Pollaiuolo's composition when he states, "In my opinion, there will be no historia
so rich in variety of things that nine or ten men cannot worthily perform it." 32 He
continues, "Though variety is pleasing in any 'historia' a picture in which the atti-
tudes and movements of the bodies differ very much among themselves is most
pleasing of all. So let there be some visible full-face, with their hands turned up-
wards and fingers raised, and resting on one foot; others should have their faces
turned away, their arms by their sides and feet together, and each one of them
should have his own particular flexions and movements." Alberti even goes so far
as to suggest, "If suitable, let some be naked," though admittedly he recommends
modesty, and Pollaiuolo clearly takes liberties with his brazenly nude combatants.
The degree to which these ideas appear to describe Pollaiuolo's engraving is most
compelling. The issue of how one might render the idea of a sculptural figure—pro-
viding as much information as possible about the modeling, relief, and anatomic
specificity or "likeness" of the figure in a two-dimensional medium—is addressed
by adapting Alberti's historia discussion. Pollaiuolo portrays ten men, in a variety
of active poses including paired opposites, to provide the viewer with multiple
viewpoints of the human form in action, as if rotating a statuette or moving around
a sculptural form—the striking similarity of the faces suggesting one model. Great
attention is given to the surface modeling of the figures (the play of light across
form), and as Laurie Fusco noted, some areas of musculature are even unnaturally
twisted around a limb toward the viewer to reveal more than one would actually
see from that angle, in an attempt to provide as much information about the struc-
ture of the body as possible for the viewer's reference. 33 The pairing of oppositely
posed figures has a tradition in medieval copybooks as well. 34 The problem of con-
veying three-dimensional ideas in a two-dimensional format, and seeking a means
of resolving the tension between them, must have provided a particularly appealing
challenge for an artist like Pollaiuolo, who worked as a goldsmith, sculptor, and
painter.
POLLAIUOLO'S ULTIMATE LEGACY
Further insight into these Albertian connections may be found in a broader exami-
nation of Pollaiuolo's approach to drawing and his role as a maestro di disegno.
Among the works central to this discussion is a drawing, Nude Man Seen from Three
Angles [14], now generally accepted as by Pollaiuolo's hand. 35 Whether the model
for this image was a small, malleable wax figure with movable limbs or a live model
(as has been debated), 36 the purpose of this exercise appears to be the translation of
a three-dimensional object into two dimensions by depicting multiple viewpoints
(front, back, and side; heads shown in three-quarter, profile, and lost profile), and
establishing the anatomical structure of the figure. The two-dimensional aspect of
the drawing is subtly accentuated in the limb arrangements of the front and back
views: the contours of the arms and legs are strikingly similar and it is primarily the
40