Facilità and non finito in Vasari`s Lives. Carlos Montes Serrano

Facilità and non finito in Vasari’s Lives.
Carlos Montes Serrano
Ease, grace, speed, promptness, agility and dexterety are much looked-up-to
qualities in any painter or drawer, as in anyone taking up a difficult and hard task. We
admire those with a special facility for languages, skiing, playing the piano, or making
friends. Artists and skilled people, aware of this “extra” awe gained by facility, try to
perform their work exaggerating their naturalness, avoiding any hint of effort and artifice,
even making-up or hiding the hardships.
Exhibitions of abilities are the best example I find to illustrate this last idea. Anyone
having witnessed a show by the Cirque Du Soleil will remember their facial expressions
and the willowy gestures of acrobats and jugglers by which they pretend to be making their
unbelievable movements with an ease even greater that the one assumed in anyone subject
to an intense and hard training.
Visual arts take part also in this spirit of showing off of skills, so that it is normal
that ease, the avoidance of any feeling of effort, and pretending an assumed carelessness,
have been some of the features by which the quality of an artist or a work of art are judged.
However, as is known, facilità does not become an artistic category or a criterion to
judge the value of a drawing or a work of art until long after the beginning of the XVIth
Century, specifically due to painter and architect Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), author of Le
Vite dei piu eccelenti pittori, scultori e architetti, published in Florence in 1550 and
reedited in the same city, revised and with an good number of added biographies, in 1568.
I would like to collect, in this paper, several quotes from Vasari’s work, in order to
explain what he means by facilità, where the interest on this idea comes from and its
relations with other artistic categories “en vogue” in the middle of the Cinquecento, as
facilità is precisely what allows Vasari to positively judge unfinished works –the non
finito–, sketches, speed in drawing, naturalness without artifice, and the effort to pretend a
false ease in solving the most difficult tasksi.
Pliny and classical Facilitas.
The concept of facilità is already present in Antiquity, although there are no clear
references of this term applied to works of art, among other reasons because there was still
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no notion of Art. It might well be that what Romans will call facilitas appeared in the
playing environment loaded with competition and showing off of abilities which
characterizes Greek Cultureii.
The resolution of problems of any kind, the ability to successfully face the toughest
challenges, the undeniable exigences of technè certainly led to the praise of those who
performed those tasks with less effortiii. But, as I said, the use of this notion regarding
Greek artists or works of art are only to be found in Pliny the Elder’s summary of tales
from Antiquity Natural History, and, indirectly, in the Roman treatises on Rhetoric.
In Pliny’s commentaries, to begin with, there is no reference to facilitas, only to
several opposite qualities. That is, Pliny criticises those works of Art in which an excessive
effort in the task or the technique used by the artist is noticeable, because that very stress
makes the work lose all its grace, and creates a negative feeling in the observer. When
referring to Protogenes’ painting, he tells us that Apelles used to say that the former
“equaled him in every aspect, but there was one in which he [Apelles] excelled: he knew
how to take his hand away from the board; a teaching worth remembering, that often, too
much accuracy is no less simplicity than art”iv.
And elsewhere, writing about Callimachus’ sculpture, he states that “he was a
conscientious critic of his own work, whose diligence was endless, for which he was called
catatexítechnos [the art-spoiler], an example worth remembering of the need to refrain from
meticulousness. His are some Spartan dancers, a flawless piece from which any grace was
taken away by care”v.
Facilitas leads us straight to another feature: speed, distinguishable from the former
because Pliny uses for the latter the words velox or velociter. Notice how Pliny praises
painter Nicomachus’ speed saying “there was none faster that him”; and of his pupil
Philoxenus of Eretria writes that “imitating his teacher’s speed, found simplified ways of
painting”vi, a dark expression which might refer either to sketch, caricature or perhaps to an
impressionist way of evoking reality.
Another anecdote deserving comment refers to Protogenes’ discovery of the effects
of casuality, when trying to paint the foam at a panting dog’s mouth and was unable to
represent it in a credible way, despite his continuous efforts. Pliny tells us that the painter
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“did not approve his own perfection: he was unable to diminish it and he perceived it as
excessive and too distant from reality, and the foam was obviously painted, not coming out
of the dog’s mouth”. Annoyed by it, he threw a sponge to the dog’s face and produced a
capricious stain on the picture which simulated the effect he meantvii.
Plniy, as we see, points out some qualities in a work of art –avoiding too much ruse
and insistence, ease and speed, a kind of impressionist evocation– but does not define the
effect of facilitas.
Something similar is found in his treatises on rhetoric, although there facilitas
appears as a critical term which indicates the facility to speak publicly attained after years
of study and practise. Actually, when, in his Institutio Oratoria, refers to the different
qualities of Greek artists –in his famous comparison between these and orators–, he uses
this term as a straightforward praise: “facilitate Antiphilus… est praestantissimus”, that is,
in the ease of performance, Antiphilus was the most outstandingviii. Later, in the same
passage, says that “Demetrius was censored for excess of care rather than its lack, as he
loved similarity more than beauty”ix.
Cicero: Neglegentia diligens and dissimulatio artis.
But Antiquity’s greatest art was not painting, sculpture or architecture: it was
rhetoric, oratory, the public declamation with political and forensic aims. There one finds
the highest stylistic refinements, the utmost perfection in the use of resorts, the deepest
theoretical elaboration. So much so that all the Renaissance’s theory of art will depend,
both in its formulation and its concepts, on Antiquity’s studies on rhetoric; hence, we must
study these to know the sources from which the classical valuation of facilitas stems.
Cicero, in his Orator, sets up a whole psychological theory of style, stressing the
expressive effects any speaker has to produce in his listener in order to maintain his
attention, touch and persuade him with his reasons. One of Cicero’s main caveats is to
prevent speeches to be perceived as unnatural, false and elaborate due to an excessive
preparation or too much use of figures of style. On the contrary: even though they were
prepared, written and memorized beforehand, they should be told with an apparent
naturalness.
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For him, an excessive subjection to rhythm, harmony and figures of style produces
fatigue and boredom, “takes away the speech’s poignancy, makes the speaker lose the sense
of humanness and completely removes sincerity and good faith”x. Hence, speeches must
pretend some easy spontaneity, for the listener unconsciously relates this with sincerity,
while too much preparation and formalism elicit the opposite feeling and warn the listener
against the speaker’s cunning and stylish ruses.
Wherefore Cicero suggests speaking with some carelessness and negligence so as to
make the audience think that his confidence in the contents of the speech is such that he can
happily forget form for the sake of pleasure. Even more, judges and public will take those
details for symptoms of naturalness, honesty, simplicity and security in the theses he is
defending. In any case, Cicero, aware that this apparent honesty is unnatural, worked out,
another rhetorical resort, notices that its use is not as easy as it seems: it requires an
attentive preparation, as “those sentences must not be carelessly dealt with, but they require
a somehow unconcerned concern”xi.
The need of showing a kind of negligence –neglegentia diligens– towards the
established rules and hiding the effort invested in the making of one’s work –dissimulatio
artis– are among the greatest contributions of the Orator to Western artistic culture. The
use of facility, license and freedom over the norms of style –thus avoiding an excessive
formalism, rigidity and stiffness– have been, since then, consecratedxii. The perfect orator
must show in his words and acts a kind of ease, gentleness and naturalness which come
from commanding the rules of style without being commanded by themxiii.
Allegory of Eloquence
Vicenzo Foppa, The young Cicero, ca 1464, Wallace Collection, London
Castiglione: Senza fatica, grazioso e non sforzato.
Cicero’s opinions on the perfect orator decisively influenced the change of tastes
and ways of behaviour of the XVIth Century due to their spreading by Baldassar
Castiglione in his Il libro del Cortegiano. It was published with great success in 1528,
although the manuscript was around long before; there appeared fifty editions in Italy
during that Century apart from its translations to the main languages of the neighbouring
countriesxiv.
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Castiglione’s book intends to be a treatise on the perfect courtier, as regards his
education, customs, behaviour, speech and social dealings. In the prologue, the author
explains that he will use the Orator and other of Cicero’s works as sources of examples,
ideas and suggestions to enlighten his discourse. In order to explain what he means by
grace, and what makes it different from beauty, he coins the term sprezzatura, with which
he aims to describe that apparent freedom, pleasant unconcern, seemingly naturalness,
careful negligence, carelessness, recklenessness, or neglegentia diligens of which Cicero
speaks.
Raphael, Baldassare Castiglione, ca 1515, Louvre, Paris
Sprezzatura is identified with ease in doing and acting, with effortlessness, and
thanks to The Courtier, it will become, in the XVIth Century, the main canon of elegance,
dignity and good taste with which to judge any properly educated person. Due to the
influence it had in the artistic culture of the time, it is worthwhile quoting the long passage
in which Castiglione defines this new term:
Ma avendo io già più volte pensato meco onde nasca questa grazia, lasciando quelli
che dalle stelle l’hanno, trovo una regula universalissima la qual mi par valer circa
questo in tutte le cose umane che si facciano o dicano più che alcuna altra, e ciò è
fuggir quanto più si po, e como un asperissimo e pericoloso scoglio, la affettazione;
e, per dir forse una nova parola, usar in ogni cosa una certa sprezzatura, che
nasconda l’arte e dimostri ciò che si fa e dice venir fatto senza fatica e quasi senza
pensarvi. Da questo credo io che derivi assai la grazia; perché delle cose rare e ben
fatte ognun sa la difficultà, onde in esse la facilità genera grandissima maraviglia; e
per lo contrario il sforzare e, come si dice, tirar per i capegli dà somma disgrazia e
fa estimar poco ogni cosa, per grande ch’ella si sia. Però si po dir quella esser vera
arte che non pare esser arte; né più in altro si ha da poner studio, che nel
nasconderla: perché se è scoperta, leva in tutto il credito e fa l’omo poco estimatoxv.
Let us briefly comment this text. Castiglione explains that the essence of grace and
elegance stays in eschewing any hint of affectation, recommending a certain sprezztura
(which Thomas Hoby translated as reckelessness, and Boscán, in his Spanish version as
desprecio or descuido), “to cover art withall, and seeme whatsoever he doth and sayeth to
do it wythout pain, and (as it were) not myndyng it”. In the same spirit as Cicero in his
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Orator, he adds that one has to make up any feeling of effort or excessive diligence. On the
contrary, the perfect courtier must pretend in all his deeds a kind of ease or sprezzata
disinvoltura, as it “may be said to be a very art that appeereth not to be art”.
Il Libro del Cortegiano, Spanish edition by Juan Boscán 1534.
Developing the same idea, Castiglione explains that from sprezzatura there comes
facilità, a quality which imprints in any human activity a special grace, as it makes the
observers wonder if such results can be attained carelessly, what would not be done with
deep study and effort! He writes again about the need of speaking about anything showing
facility:
Con una simplicità di quel candore, che fa parar che la natura istessa parli,
intenerirgli e quasi inebbriargli di dolcezza, e con tal facilità, che chi ode estimi
ch’egli ancor con pochissima fatica potrebbe conseguir quel grado, e quando ne fa la
prova si gli trovi lontanissimoxvi.
He resorts to fencing, dance, music and drawing in order to give plastic examples of
the effect attained by preventing any ostentatiousness in one’s acts: thus, he describes the
implicit elegance in movements performed senza fatiga, graziose e non sforzato. There is
an example from painting which recalls an old passage of Pliny’s (where this one tells how
Apelle’s mastery was acknowledge by experts just by seeing a line):
… spesso ancor nella pittura una linea sola non stentata, un sol colpo di penello
tirato facilmente, di modo che paia che la mano, senza esser guidata da studio o arte
alcuna, vada per se stessa al suo termine secondo la intenzion del pittore, scopre
chiaramente la eccellenzia dell’artifice, circa la opinion della quale ognuno poi si
estende secondo il suo giudicio; e ‘l medesimo interviene quasi d’ogni altra cosaxvii.
In short, for Castiglione, elegance and good style are shown in naturalness and
sprezzatura, which applied to drawing and painting, appear as the ease and recklessness
with which a painter is able to draw a line. His ideas will greatly influence the artists of the
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XVIth Century: Raphael, Giulio Romano, Tiziano and even Vasari who we know read and
used Il Cortegiano even though he refrains from quoting it in his Lives.
Giorgio Vasari: Facilissima facilità.
Many details hint Cicero’s and other Rhetoric masters’ influence in Giorgio
Vasari’s writings. It is enough to recall the praises in the Orator for some pretended
carelessness and the unfinished as signs of ease, naturalness and spontaneity. It is only
natural that Vasari stresses the same ideas, which were, moreover, sanctioned in Pliny’s
stories and Castiglione’s advices in favour of sprezzatura.
Hence, Vasari praises freedom, liberality and license in architecture over
conventions and rules; non finito and the unfinished in sculpture and, in painting and
drawing, some presumed carelessness, unheededness, speed and facility from the artistxviii.
Giorgio Vasari, Selfportrait, 1570, and Le Vite, 1568
After Castiglione, Vasari’s criterion of ease or facility is undertaking senza fatica le
difficultà dell’arte –without effort the difficulties of painting and sculpture– as the great
feature of excellence in the Cinquecento and sees it as an indispensable requirement for a
work of art to have the needed grazia, charm and liveliness.
The following texts illustrate these ideas, beginning with the difficulty of art, an
expression the reader comes across continually in his different biographies of artists and
which relates deeply to the concept of artistic progress and the artist’s self-criticism and
dissatisfaction.xix
Even acknowledging not being at the same level as the great artists of the XVIth
Century, Vasari boasts, in his autobiography, about being a drawer, painter and architect of
fruitful imagination, great ease of performance and eager to undertake the most difficult
tasksxx. For example, when writing about a picture displaying the apparition of the three
Angels to Abraham, he exclaims:
Ma così avess’io saputo mettere in opera il mio concetto, come sempre con nuove
invenzioni e fantasie sono andato, allora e poi, cercando la fatiche et il difficile
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dell’arte”, and a bit later he develops the same concept: “Ma perché l’arte in sé è
dificile, bisogna torre da chi fa ictu che può. Dirò ben questo, però che lo posso
dire con verità, d’avere sempre fatto le mie icture, invenzioni e disegni icture
sieno, non dico con icture le prestezza, ictu bene con incredibile facilità e
senza stento.
Vasari –probably following his admired Michelangelo– icture the representation of
nude as the hardest challenge for painters and sculptors, and where the artist’s achieved
perfection is best perceived. This is clear in his own biography and in Michelangelo’s,
where he states that “in nude stays the perfection of art”. Again, in Luca Signorelli’s life, he
praises his boldness for facing and trying to master the representation of the naked human
body, proving that “Mostrò il modo di fare gl’ignudi, e che si possono sì bene con arte e
difficultà far parer vivi”.
This endeavour of Luca Signorelli and many other artists was not only a mere desire
of success and acknowledgement. According to Vasari’s Lives evolutive scheme, progress
in art was due to the great artists’ undertaking new and more difficult tasks, making easy
with their solutions and achievements their followers’ work, as these were thus able to face
new harder challenges. Thus, Vasari tells on how in the chapel of Orvieto’s Cathedral, Luca
Signorelli painted the Final Judgement with a strange and fantastical imagination –bizzarra
e capriciosa invenzione–, “with abounding nudes, foreshortened and beautiful figures”, in
such a way that those who came after him “found easy the difficulties of style”xxi.
Vasari is usually favourable towards artists related to Tuscany, Umbria or Rome,
that is, from the school of disegno –as is Luca Signorelli, who also worked at Arezzo,
Vasari’s homeland and was a relative of some of the former’s ancestors–, while he proves
utterly critical with Venetians, “the masters of colour”. This makes it worthwhile studying
his biographies of the artists from Véneto, for he is most careful in his judgements and in
applying his scale of values in order to be able to underrate their works.
For example, in Venetian painter Battista Franco’s life, there is a negative comment
about his paintings, as they showed the lack of ease and the excessive effort put into their
making. He tells us that Franco, even being a great painter and a follower of Michelangelo,
ended up destroying his own style by only copying others’ drawings and statues, never
painting from life or improving his painting technique. Because of this –Vasari goes on–
his style turned irremediably stiff, his figures looked dry and sharp, lacked grazia e
vaghezza di colorito, and his paintings showed molta fatica e diligenza. Vasari takes
advantage of this to advise the reader of the following:
Le icture vogliono essere condotte facili e poste le cose a’ luoghi loro con giudizio
e senza uno certo stento e fatica che fa le cose parere dure e crude; oltra che il
troppo icture le le fa molte volte venir tinte e le guasta. Perciò che lo star loro
tanto a torno toglie tutto quel buono che suole fare la facilità e la grazia e la
fierezza; le quali cose, ancor che in gran parte vengano e s’abbiano da natura, si
possono anco in parte acquistare dallo ictur e dall’arte.
The above text –obviously inspired by Pliny’s passage on Callimachus– remembers
us that real or pretended ease is also perceived in the speed of performance, which is
another of the qualities of the great masters of his age; in the Prologue to the third part of
his Lives, he writes that “while the first masters needed six years to paint a picture, our
contemporaries paint six in a year”xxii.
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On the other hand, that same passage introduces a differentiation between ease as a
natural disposition or as something attained by study, worth commenting. For Vasari, both
Leonardo and Michelangelo had a natural ease to accomplish the most difficult challenges
they posed themselves, while Raphael acquired that grace and ease by studying the works
of others. Raphael has, then, an acquired ease, but also a natural facility for choosing and
fast assimilating the best of other artists –like the Greek painter Zeuxis–, and also to give
his images a personal touch, that sweetness and grace which earned him great fame among
his contemporariesxxiii.
Another good example illustrating this synthesis between ease and speed is found in
his biography of Giulio Romano, whom Vasari also praises for his great inventiveness and
overflowing creativity, full of license, fantasies and outlandishnessesxxiv. He admires
especially the ease of disegno, for as soon as Romano’s contractor “opened his mouth to
hint him an idea, he [Giulio] had already understood and drew it”; so that his sketches and
outlines were valued above his paintings, as these, once finished, lost all their grace,
because they showed the effort and insistence of the artist:
Benché si può affermare che Giulio esprimesse sempre meglio I suoi concetti ne’
disegni, che nell’operare o nelle pitture, vedendosi in quelli più vivacità, fierezza et
affetto. E ciò icture forse avvenire perché un disegno lo ictur in un’ora, tutto fiero
et acceso nell’opera, dove nelle icture consumava i mesi e gl’anni; onde,
venendogli a fastidio, e mancando quel vivo et ardente amore che si ha quando si
comincia alcuna cosa, non è maraviglia se non dava loro quell’intera perfezzione che
si vede ne’ suo’ disegni.
Michelangelo, engraving in Le Vite, 1568
Tiziano, Giulio Romano, 1536
Notwithstanding, the master of ease was Michelangelo, of whom Vasari tells that
people were awed at his solving the most difficult tasks “con failissima facilità” and “in
pochissimo tempo”. He even showed such an art, grace and distinguished vitality, that it
may well be said he overcame the artists of Antiquity, “avendo saputo cavare della
dificultà tanto facilmente le cose, che non paion fatte con fatica”.
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Although the comment seems unimportant enough, there is an indirect testimonial
confirming it, but stressing the feigned or pretended nature of Michelangelo’s assumed
ease. This leads me to think that we owe to Buonarruoti the application of Cicero’s
neglegentia diligens to XVIth Century painting. In one of Francisco de Hollanda’s nicest
passages accounting his presumed dialogues with Michelangelo in Rome, the latter tells
Hollanda the following:
Y quieroos dezir, Francisco de Olanda, un grandíssimo primor en esta nuestra arte,
el qual por ventura vos no ignorais, y pienso que le tendreis por sumo, y este es por
quien se ha más de trabajar y sudar en las obras de pintura, que es, con gran suma
de trabajo y de estudio, hazer la cosa de manera que parezca despues de muy
trabajada que fué hecha casi deprisa y casi sin ningún trabajo y muy sin
pesadumbre, no siendo ansí; y este es muy excellente aviso y primor, y a las vezes
acontece quedar alguna cosa con poco trabajo hecha de la manera que digo, pero
mui pocas vezes; y lo más esa poder del trabajo hacerlo parecer hecho muy sin
pesadumbre.
And elsewhere in his book, Francisco de Hollanda refers again to this calculated
negligence, stating that the painter must learn his good art from antiques, as he will find in
them “la gracia, el desdén (que es gran primor en esta arte), y ansímesmo, las licencias y
los yerros hechos tan acertadamente como acostumbraban los discretos antiguos griegos y
después los romanos”xxv.
As we can see, grace, ease and speed are, in this scholarly comment, related to
licence and presumed mistakes, carelessness or unfinished in the work of art.
Invenzione, sketch and non finito.
Returning to Vasari, there are similar judgement criteria in the biography of sculptor
Luca della Robbia. Speaking about the gallery of singer children of Florence’s Cathedral,
Vasari compares its detailed finish “con la sua pulitezza e finimento” against the one made
years later by Donatello, coarser in a sketchy way, “tutta in bozze e non finita”xxvi.
Luca della Robbia, Cantoria, 1431-1438
Donatello, Cantoria, 1433-1439
Vasari must have regarded highly this subtle comparison, as in the second edition of
his Lives, he delves into greater detail and enhances it with new opinions on the artistic
value of non finito, explaining at greater length this preceptive and aesthetic effect. He
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states that Donatello’s almost sketched sculptures fit better than Luca della Robbia’s, being
high and at a great distance from the observer, and “Alla quale cosa deono molto avere
avvertenza gl’artefici perciò che la sperienza fa conoscere che tutte le cose che vanno
lontane, o siano pitture o siano sculture o qualsivoglia altra somigliante cosa, hanno più
fierezza e maggior forza se sono una bella bozza che se sono finite”, adding a long and
scholarly comment:
Et oltre che la lontananza fa questo effetto, pare anco che nelle bozze molte volte,
nascendo in un subito dal furore dell’arte, si sprima il suo concetto in pochi colpi, e
che per contrario lo stento e la troppa diligenza alcuna fiata toglia la forza et il
sapere a coloro che non sanno mai levare le mani dall’opera che fanno. E chi sa che
l’arti del disegno, per non dir la pittura solamente, sono alla poesia simili, sa ancora
che come le poesie dettate dal furore poetico sono le vere e la buone e migliore che le
stentate, così l’opera degli uomini eccellenti nell’arti del disegno sono migliori
uando sono fatte a un tratto dalla forza di quel furore, que quando si vanno
ghiribizzando a poco a poco con istento e con fatica; e chi ha da principio, come si
dee avere, nella idea quello che vuol fare, camina sempre risoluto alla perfezzione
con molta agevolezza.
I think Vasari succeeds here in relating the foretold ideas on ease, speed, inspiration,
sketches and unfinished worksxxvii. But in this text he adds a couple of reflections. The first
one, which comes from Pliny and deals with non finito, had never been used before by the
critics, although it will become increasingly important during the XVIth Century, both from
the valuation of the great masters’ sektches and drawings and from the sculptures
Michaelangelo left sketched. Pliny’s text runs as follows:
Something quite strange and worth remembering, that their unfinished paintings
produce a greater awe than the finished ones, as in the lines left in these on can
perceive the very thoughts of the author, and the pain at knowing that the hand
performing then passed away while working at themxxviii.
The second source of inspiration refers to Horace’s ut pictura poesis, and his two
famous remarks comparing the poets’ inventiveness with that of painters, demanding from
both a certain restraint in their fantasiesxxix; at the same time the Roman poet mentions the
perception of painting from near and from afar and its effects in the observerxxx. It is
obvious that Vasari takes advantage of Horace’s ideas to write his comment on the different
styles of Luca della Robbia and Donatello; but, with his sharp shrewdness, he comes to
another conclusion, comparing the poet’s inspiration with the fast, reckless and expressive
sketches of painters.
We understand thus how Vasari’s work shows us the high critical refinement
appearing in the middle XVIth Century, where apart from fixing the art’s vocabulary,
people were seeking how to value the expressive significance of different artistic
techniques, finding inspiration in the authority of Cicero, Pliny, Horace and Castigliano.
Starting from the ideas on ease, negligentia diligens and the avoidance of excessive
refinement, a predilection for outlines, sketches and unfinished works was developed –as a
symptom of the creative frenzy– which remains today.
We may probably summarize all the above recalling one of the most quoted of
Vasari’s texts, this one concerning the great Venetian master of colour, Tiziano, whom our
author dislikes and is continually trying to underrate, undoubtedly thinking that by doing so
he was helping up his idol Michelangelo, the summit of arts.
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However, Vasari cannot help admitting in him the gift of the presumed carelessness,
that peculiarity in Tizian’s technique which –thanks to the diffusion of Vasari’s Lives– will
be so esteemed and copied by XVIIth Century artists, like Velázquez or Rembrandt.
Moreover, the Venetian’s painting style fit into Pliny’s reference on the artists’ last works.
Vasari writes that in his last pictures, Tiziano’s hand was quite different form his
youth’s:xxxi
Ma è ben vero che il modo di fare che tenne in queste ultime è assai diferente dal
fare suo da giovane. Conciò sia che le prime son condotte con una certa finezza e
diligenza incredibile e da essere vedute da presso e da lontano. E queste ultime,
condotte di colpi, tirate via di grosso e con macchie, di maniera che da presso non
si possono vedere e di lontano appariscono perfette; e questo modo è stato cagione
che molti, volendo in ciò immitare e mostrare di fare il pratico, hanno fatto di goffe
pitture, e ciò adiviene perché se bene a molti pare che elle siano fatte senza fatica,
non è così il vero e s’ingannano, perché si conosce che sono rifatte e che si è
ritornato loro addosso con i colori tanta volte, che la fatica vi si vede. E questo
modo sì fatto è giudizioso, bello e stupendo, perché fa parere vive la pitture e fatte
con grande arte, nascondendo le fatiche.
Tiziano, Selfportrait, 1562, Prado Museum, Madrid
Let us finish here our comment on Vasari’s ideas on ease and how other authors
possibly influenced him. There is a point at which it is impossible to tell whether the
concept of unfinished, outlined drawing, non finito, effortless drawing or painting fast
pretending a kind of ease comes from reading Pliny, Cicero’s Rhetoric, Castiglione’s
synthesis or even Michelangelo’s own opinions. In any case, we have checked how the
classical idea of facilitas, as exposed by Cicero and supported by the authority of the artists
of Antiquity, was quickly assimilated by the cultural and artistic environment of the XVIth
Century, determining the later development of visual arts.
Translation: Pedro Fortuny.
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i I am most grateful to Paloma Suárez for her updated translations to Spanish of the quoted texts in XVIth
Century Italian.
ii Concerning competition and game in Greece, see: HUIZINGA, Johan, Homo ludens, Alianza, Madrid 1998.
iii ONIANS, John, Art and Thought in the Hellenistic Age: The Greek Wold View 350 a.C. 50 a.C., Thames
and Hudson, London, 1979.
iv “Dixit enim omnia sibi cum illo paria esse aut illi meliora, sed uno se praestare, quod manum de tabula
sciret tollere, memorabili praeceptoncere saepe nimiam diligentiam. Fuit autem non minoris simplicitatis
quam artis” (Liber XXXV, 80).
v “Callimachus, semper calumniator sui nec finem habentis diligentiae, ob id catatexitechnus appellatus,
memorabili exemplo adhibendi et curae modum. huius sunt saltantes Lacaenae, emendatum opus, sed in quo
gratiam omnem diligentia abstulerit” (Liber XXXIV, 92).
vi “Nec fuit alius in ea arte velocior... Hic celeritatem praeceptoris secutus breviores etiamnum quasdam
picturae conpendiarias invenit” (Liber XXXV, 109 and 110).
vii “Nec minuit poterat et videbatur nimia ac longius a veritate discedere, spumaque pingi, non ex ore nasci.
anxio animi cruciatu, cum in pictura verum esse, non verisimile vellet, absterserat saepius mutaveratque
penicillum, nullo modo sibi adprobans. postremo iratus arati, quod intellegeretur, spongeam inpegit inviso
loco tabulae. et illa reposuit ablatos colores qualiter cura optaverat, fecitque in pictura fortuna naturam”.
viii Although Quinitlian's and Cicero's stories concerning Ancient art, both must have referred to the same
sources. Cfr. POLLIT, J.J., The Ancient View of Greek Art. Criticism, History, and Terminology, Yale
University Press, New Haven and London 1974, pp. 81, 273.
ix QUINTILIAN, Institutio oratoria, XII, 10, 1.
x CICERO, Orator, §§ 195, 196, 208, 209.
xi Ibid., §§ 20, 21, 77, 78, 81, 85, 197.
xii Also to be found in the Institutio oratoria, where the expression "ars est celare artem" (art is hiding art) is
coined.
xiii Reading Brutus’ history of Rhetoric in Rome, we discover which were the aspects Cicero admired more
in the great orators; in his opinion, a good speech required moderation, sobriety, naturalness without artifice,
avoiding affectation, carelessness, grace, liberality in saying, that is, freedom and ease. Cfr. Brutus, § 139 ss.,
§ 143 ss; § 173.
xiv BURKE, Peter, The Fortunes of the Courtier, Polity Press, 1995.
xv CASTIGLIONE, Baldassar, Il Libro del Cortegiano (I, 26), Garzanti, Cernusco 1995. Spanish version by
Juan Boscán, El cortesano, Barcelona 1534. English version by sir Thomas Hoby, The Courtier, London
1561.
xvi Il Libro del Cortegiano, I, 34.
xvii Il Libro del Cortegiano, I, 28.
xviii On this work of Vasari, see: RUBIN, Patricia Lee, Giorgio Vasari. Art and History, Yale University
Press, New Haven and London 1995; LE MOLLÉ, Roland, Giorgio Vasari. L’Uomo dei Medici, Rusconi,
Milán 1998; BOASE, T.S.R., Giorgio Vasari. The Man and the Book, Princeton University Press, Princeton,
New Jersey 1979.
xix Concerning these two subjects, see GOMBRICH, E.H., “The Renaissance concept of Artistic Progress
and its Consequences” in Norm and Form: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance 1, Phaidon Press, London
1966; and “The Leaven of Criticism in Renaissance Art” in The Heritage of Apelles: Studies in the Art of the
Renaissance, 3, Phaidon Press, London 1976.
xx Also as an architect; for example, concerning the galleries at Uffizzi and the corridor over the Arno to the
Pitti palace: "This corridor was finished in five months, following my charts and drawings, although because
of its difficulties it would have required five years".
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xxi "Per lo che destò l’animo a tutti quelli che sono stati dopo lui, onde hanno poi trovato agevoli le difficultà
di quella maniera". In the first editions of the Lives, he only writes: “di far nell’arte le difficultà che si
dipingono in seguitar quella maniera”. He seems to explain that Signorelli's achievment was not to face
difficult tasks but to make easy what was difficult.
xxii "Dove prima da que’ nostri maestri si faceva una tavola in sei anni, oggi in un anno questi maestri ne
fanno sei". Vasari himself is praised by his contemporaries for his incredible speed in his works. Cfr. LE
MOLLÉ, Giorgio Vasari, cit., pp. 387-394.
xxiii See, DE VECCHI, Pierluigi, "Difficultà, facilità e sprezzatura nell’opera di Raffaello", in NITTI,
Patrizia (editor), Raphaello. Grazia e belleza, Skira y Musee Luxembourg, París 2001, pp. 29-38. Also,
SMYTH, Craig Hugh, Mannerism and Maniera, Irsa, Viena 1992.
xxiv Giulio Romano, as a predilect disciple of Raphael, is greatly admired by Vasari, who even says that
nobody was able like him to imitate Raphael in his "maniera, invenzione, disegno e colorito"; and that his art
was "fiero, sicuro, capriccioso, vano, abondante et universale", and his painting "di bella invenzione e
dilettevole, che fatta con giudizio e diligenza", as he liked all kind of fantasies and bizarre images, for he
was"capricciosissimo e ingegnoso, per mostrare quanto valeva". See, GOMBRICH, E.H., Giulio Romano. Il
Palazzo del Te, Tre Lune, Mantua 1999.
xxv TORMO, p. 48.
xxvi "Se bene Donatello, che poi fece l’ornamento dell’altro organo che è dirimpetto a questo, fece il suo con
molto più giudizio e pratica che non aveva fatto Luca, come si dirà al luogo suo, per avere egli quell’opera
condotta quasi tutta in bozze e non finita pulitamente, acciò che apparisse di lontano assai meglio, como fa,
che quella di Luca, la quale, se bene è fatta con buon disegno e diligenza, ella fa nondimeno con la sua
pulitezza e finimento, che l’occhio per la lontananza la perde e non la scorge bene come si fa quella di
Donato, quasi solamente abbozzata."
xxvii Vasari reflects the same idea in Iacomo Parma's life, relating the inspiration and creative frenzy of the
artists with their first sketches, adding that, sometimes, that strength is lost as the work is performed, by and
excessive attentiveness towards the details, forgetting the whole.
xxviii Pliny, Liber XXXV, 145.
xxix Letter to Pisons (9-13): "Pictoribus atque poetis quidlibet audendi semper fuit aequa potestas. Scimus, et
hanc ueniam petimusque damusque uicissim"
xxx "Ut pictura poesis; erit quae, si propius stes, te capiat magis, et quaedam, si longius abstes; haec amat
obscurum, uolet haec sub luce uideri, iudicis argutum quae non formidat acumen; haec placuit semel, haec
deciens repetita placebit." HORACE, Ars Poetica, 361-365.
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