Department of Art History  |  Sweet Briar College

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INTRODUCTORY DISCUSSION 1 Art & Artists in the Ancient World and Middle Ages 2 Art & Artists in the Renaissance 3 Art & Artists in the Academies 4 Art & Artists and Modernism 5 Art & Artists Today

ART & ARTISTS: Renaissance art and "grazia"    Professor Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe

SECOND and last PART of a TWO-PART ESSAY on ART & ARTISTS in the RENAISSANCE

               If Renaissance artists were now seen to be divinely inspired in their creativity, it may be asked what form this divine inspiration took in the actual work of art.

               In his book the Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, first published in Florence in 1550 [see BIBLIOGRAPHY], Giorgio Vasari divided the Renaissance into three periods. The artists of the first period, corresponding roughly with the period from the mid-13th century to the end of the 14th century, he described as "i primi lumi" ("the first lights", glimmering out of the darkness of the Middle Ages). The artists of the second period, corresponding to the 15th century (the Early Renaissance), he regarded as admirable, but as yet imperfect in their art. The artists of the third period, which Vasari describes as the "età moderna" ("the modern period"), beginning with Leonardo da Vinci, and corresponding to the sixteenth century (the High Renaissance and Early Mannerism) down to the time Vasari was writing, is praised as the time when perfection in art was attained.

               Among the special qualities of the third period was something Vasari calls grazia, which may be interpreted as "grace" but incorporates both the idea of gracefulness (as a form beauty), and the idea of divine grace. For Vasari, grazia seems to have been more or less a synonym for a kind of perfect divine beauty.

               But what is grazia? The task of defining and identifying it in a painting is difficult. It may be thought of that which gives a painting a certain "air", as something added to beauty but not directly visible. It is a mysterious quality the presence of which makes a painting a great work of art. In the 16th century, grazia came to be associated with the God-sent inspiration.

               A painting or a piece of sculpture came to be seen not as merely the product or creation of a painter or sculptor, but as containing within it some divine inspiration, a spiritual essence emanating from God. The term grazia was used to define this something extra, this special quality of divinely-inspired genius, in a work of art. Indeed, it was the presence of grazia which produced that indefinable perfection in a work of art.

               Grazia, however, defied analysis; it was never clear exactly what it was; it was just there in a great work of art. In fact, it came to be referred to in Italy as "un non so che" ("an I-don't-know-what"), which the French in the 17th century translated into the phrase "je-ne-sais-quoi." A painting may be described as having as certain "je-ne-sais-quoi", that something special, which made it a great.

               Thus, during the sixteenth century, the products of painters and sculptors came to be seen as possessing something beyond their immediate and merely visible appearance. A work of art was believed to contain an extra indefinable spiritual essence -- which is arguably what we today have come regard as one of the essential ingredients in our understanding of what constitutes "art".

               This quality in art came to be described in different terms later on in history, but it nonetheless remains today an element thought to be essential in a work of art. It is still regarded as that which in a work of art defines its intrinsic worth -- its inward essential nature -- as ART.

               Of course, this perception of Art also influenced the status of the artist who now acquired an almost holy aura of superiority. In the 16th century the artist emerges as an educated and cultivated individual whose genius was recognized and revered.

               The perceived link with the divine sparked a developing interest in the personality of the artist. What sort of person was an artist? What was the temperament of a person who could be inspired in this way?

               Both a clue to and an explanation for the artist's nature lay in Aristotle who asked "why is it that all those who have become eminent in philosophy or politics or poetry or the arts are clearly melancholics...?"

               The Renaissance Neoplatonic philosopher Marsilio Ficino took Aristotle's link between melancholy and genius and reconciled it, in typical Renaissance fashion, with Plato's association of genius and creative inspiration. Melancholy (the result of too much black bile, one of the four humours of the body, according to Hippocrates' physiological theory) was recognized as the temperament of the creative genius. The artist in the Renaissance thus came to be seen as prone to melancholia, and if they didn't already, exhibited temperamental qualities such as sensitivity, moodiness, eccentric or solitary behaviour. The planet associated with the melancholic temperament was Saturn, and saturnine artists were thought to be "born under Saturn." At the same time, a melancholic temperament predisposed an artistic individual to divine inspiration and creative genius.

               In the 16th century, there is a new tolerance of and repsect for the artist as a moody, creative genius. There begins to emerge also at this time the notion of individual expression (of the artist) which is to form the basis for the Romantic image of the artist in later centuries.

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RENAISSANCE (continued)

• The Renaissance and the Rise of the Artist
• The Renaissance and grazia (this page)

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INTRODUCTION (continued):

1. Art & Artists in the Ancient World and Middle Ages

2. Art & Artists in the Renaissance

• The Renaissance and the Rise of the Artist
• The Renaissance and "grazia" (this page)

3. Art & Artists in the Academies

4. Art & Artists and Modernism

• The Roots of Modernism
• Modernism and Art for Art's Sake
• Modernism and Politics
• Modernism and Postmodernism
• Modernism and the End of Art

5. Art & Artists Today

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