UNDER THE SIGN OF SATURN
At the end of the 15th century, the modus operandi of the artist deeply changed. The scrupulous and methodical medieval craftsman turns into an unpredictable and chaotic being, alternating periods of intense and focused work with catatonic moments of inactivity. Testimonies of this new attitude – not to say abnormal – are still rare at the end of the 15th century but very explicit:
... Leonardo da Vinci … used to go on the scaffolding in the early morning, because the Last Supper is somehow high. He used to stay still, from sunrise to nightfall. His brush in his hand, he forgot to eat and drink, painting continuously. Then, for two, three, or four days, he did not touch the painting but stand there, one or two hours a day to simply gaze at it, examining all alone his figures. Depending on the caprice or whim that took hold of him, I also saw him leaving in the middle of the day, when the sun is high in the sky, from Corte Vecchia where he made this wonderful clay horse and coming directly to the Grazie. Once on the scaffolding, he took his brush, gave one or two strokes to a figure and immediately left. (Matteo Bandello, 1485-1561).
Vinci himself said:
... the most brilliant talents, the less they work, the more they create, looking for inventions in their minds and shaping perfect ideas that will be expressed later and painted with their hands.
Vasari said in a similar way:
... Good works are not made if they have not been thought for a long time.
This can be related to another aspect: the artist’s talent. Since the beginning of the 16th century, it was common to affirm that artists are born, made. Leonardo insisted on the fact that painting can be taught only to those who are predisposed to it by nature and he declares it superior to science because artworks are inimitable.
In his dialogues, Francisco de Hollandia has Michelangelo say:
... I highly valuate a work made by an extremely gifted master, even if he did it quickly... Artworks are not to be judged by useless time spent on making them but by the greatness of the knowledge and the hand of his maker.
The artist can easily follow the flow of his personal inclinations and simply satisfy his needs for introspection, because he is the master of his own time.
A second type of inertia is associated to the creative otium, caused by a feeling of inadequacy and renunciation. The case of Sebastiano del Piombo (1485-1574) can be quoted. He was switching from:
... industrious zeal to laziness and carelessness.
Vasari, jealous of the initial success of the Venetian painter, pretended that this transformation was due to
... magnificence and generosity of Clement VII who made him guard of the papal seal, by excessively paying him.
But Vasari himself also gives Sebastiano’s own explanation:
... I also have a way of living, I wish I could do nothing, because today in this world there are talents realizing in two months what we used to do in two years.
A century later, Andrea Sacchi (1599-1661), one of the big masters of Roman Baroque, similarly thought:
... He worked with an extremely confused soul, since he could perfectly distinguish the best from the good. He was therefore never satisfied.
When one of his friends criticized his idleness and asked him why he was so slow in his work, he answered: “Because Raphael and Annibale Caracci terrify me and make me lose my heart.”
But Sacchi perseveres, contrarily to Sebastiano del Piombo, even if:
... he spent entire days without touching his brush, but he always painted until the last day of his life. (Vasari)
In any case, the despair caused by the feeling of a professional inadequacy is a disgrace to which the artist does not easily yield, and it is rare enough at the time.
During the 16th century, the artist is generally afflicted with a suffering linked to the most uncertain boundaries, called by Petrarch the despair of the solitary soul, an anxiety that pushes him to leave mundane meetings to find refuge in the most deserted fields of isolation.
The narcissist need to escape the world can have ambiguous motives and ambivalent setbacks.
In Petrarch’s verses or correspondence – one of the first Italians longing for loneliness – exaltation and discouragement alternate as the natural effects of melancholic cyclothymia. He often describes to his friends his wanderings in the woods of the Vaucluse, his refuge from the tumult of the cities, where he avoids powerful people, far away from joy as well as sadness.
A feeling of helplessness and frustration that sometimes borders on anger:
... sometimes melancholy takes hold of me so strongly that I spent long days and nights tormented; for me it is a time without light nor life, a dark hell and a bitter death.
Michelangelo wrote to Vasari that he finds peace only in the woods and isolation is a fundamental element for creation. It is well known that he did not allow anybody, even the pope, to get near him while he was working!
Leonardo similarly says:
... the painter must be left alone to contemplate what he sees and speak to himself.
His pupil Giovan Francesco Rustici (1474-1554) echoes him:
... the work must not be shown to anyone before it is finished, so that one can change it as much as necessary, without respecting anyone.
These are valuable testimonies because they show the importance given to self-criticism as the only valid judgment, as well as the complete exclusion of the patron during the realization of the work.
Franciabigio (1482-1525), desperate when the brothers of Santissima Annunziata in Florence discovered by mistake his Matrimony of the Virgin:
... hit the heads of some women’s heads with the hammer of the workers and destroyed the Madonna’s head. (Vasari)
Traces of the hammer are still visible today and testify of the authenticity of Vasari’s story.
Everything will change in the 17th century.
Rubens or Bernini, perfect courteous gentlemen, accept with pleasure visits in their workshop and are willing to paint under the gaze of visitors.
If he could have seen Canova in his workshop, Michelangelo would have been stunned. The German C. L. Fernow tells us that he used to have Classics read to him while working.
Roberto Festa