During the Renaissance, especially in the sixteenth century, it was customary to debate the pre- eminence of the arts, particularly as between painting and sculpture. The more commonly accepted opinion is represented by Benvenuto Cellini, who thought that sculpture is eight times as great as any other art based on drawing, because a statue has eight views and they must all be equally good. A painting, he said, is nothing better than the image of a tree, man, or other object. In fact, the difference between painting and sculpture is as great as between a shadow and the object casting it. Leonardo, on the other hand, thought that painting is superior to sculpture because it is more intellectual. By this he meant that as a technique it is infinitely more subtle in the effects that it can produce, and infinitely wider in the scope it offers to invention or imagination. Michelangelo, when the question was referred to him, in his wise and direct way said that things which have the same end are themselves the same, and that therefore there could be no difference between painting and sculpture except differences due to better judgment and harder work.