Leonardo da Vinci thought sculpting a messy business. The sculptor, he pointed out, has to bang away with a hammer, getting covered in the process with a nasty mixture of dust and sweat. In contrast the painter can sit at his easel, dressed like a gentleman, and portray the whole wide world and everything in it. (Michelangelo, not surprisingly, disagreed.) Such spats were by-products of the paragone — a sort of Punch-and-Judy debate, much enjoyed in 16th-century Italy, about which of the arts was the most powerful.
Intriguingly, the National Gallery has revived the paragone in one section of its new exhibition, Monochrome. There are no works by Michelangelo or Leonardo included in this, but there are pieces by Jan van Eyck and Titian addressing that very same question: which can do more, painting or sculpture?
Titian’s ‘Portrait of a Lady’ (‘La Schiavona’) (c. 1510-12)
The latter’s ‘Portrait of a Lady’ (c.1510-12) shows a young woman standing behind a parapet.
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