Painting Against Poetry: the Battle, the Beloved, and God's Image
The form outlives the name; painting deceives the eye and is wrongly called a mechanical art
The dispute continues: the painter counterfeits forms with their true likenesses, and Leonardo asks whether a man's name or his likeness is nearer to him, noting that names vary by country while the form changes only in death. He proposes a public contest between a painter's battle-scene and a poet's verses, and between God's written name and His painted image, to prove painting more useful, beautiful, and revered. Because painting embraces all the forms of nature while the poet has only names, he protests its being ranked among the mechanical arts merely for being manual.
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The form outlives the name
The painter moves with the true likenesses of forms to counterfeit those forms, and Leonardo asks which is nearer to man, his name or his likeness. The name of man varies in various countries, but the form itself is not changed except by death.
The eye, more worthy than the ear
Leonardo contrasts the poet, who serves the sense through the ear, with the painter, who serves it through the eye, the more worthy sense. He calls for a public contest between a painter's battle-scene and a poet's verses, predicting the beholders will linger longest and give most praise to the painting, and adds that God's written name set beside His painted figure will show which is more revered.
Wrongly counted among the mechanical arts
Because painting embraces within itself all the forms of nature while the poet has only names, which are not universal as forms are, Leonardo claims the painter holds the demonstrations of effects. He protests that painting is called mechanical merely because it is manual, though writers too work with the hand.