Richard Murdock

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“Perfection can only be acquired through practice, as laziness never produced anything of value.”—De La Fontaine, Philosophy of Drawing from 17th century Spain

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Art theoretician Vicente Carducho (1576 – 1638 ) wrote Dialogos de la Pintura which promoted the idealising neo-platonic artistic theory from central Italian tradition, while at the same time criticising the direct painting methods of Caravaggio and Velazquez.

According to Carducho, drawing takes place inwardly (disegno interno – the idea) before it can be expressed outwardly (disengo esterno). In this process of expression, the student of drawing will progress through three stages of artistic development.

1.) Copying: An artist should learn to copy master drawings and sculpture, and copy from nature, including from a live model, “without taking into account more than its imitation.” To Carducho, this was the least estimable type of drawing and the basis for much of his criticism of direct painters. Copying nature is the training tool that allows disegno interno to become designo esterno, but it is not the end in and of itself.

To Carducho, the benefit came in studying nature—this correct activity, which consists of observing, and selecting from nature—essentially inventing an improved nature—contrasts with what he calls ‘direct copying of what one sees before one’s eyes’—naturalism. The necessity for this selectivity comes from the fact that nature is always moving and always seen from various angles, panoramic, and through time. But the painting is still—a single image from a single viewpoint within a limited frame of reference. The struggle of modernism to deal with these limitations led to cubism.

Part Two, Invention, tomorrow…