On Painting

De pictura refers to the Renaissance treatise on painting from which this work draws its name. In 1435, architect and humanist Leon Battista Alberti first codified the theory of linear perspective. Perspective became a major device through which artists sought to create realistic representations of spatial depth on two-dimensional surfaces. In this work, Paolini assembled nine canvases in a grid, onto which he drew the lines of an imaginary room rendered different orders of experience and ways to encounter the world. Real nails run along the sides of two canvases and are repeated on the front, where they position the real canvas as a representation in perspective. The reversed canvas at center hides the view of the represented canvas on the opposite wall of the drawn room. Fragments of a photograph pasted at the bottom of the work were taken from a previous version of Paolini’s De pictura, reminding us of the origins of the work. According to Paolini, vision activates memory and knowledge. Through memory, we can reconstruct the whole image—or, as the work suggests, a whole world—even through one part.