Dinámica del robot

To gain understanding of the attraction of the sketch model, we may delve somewhat further into the aesthetic of spontaneity. We have seen that in con- noisseurial discourse, the vocabulary used to discuss authenticity focuses pri- marily on the creative act, or to be more precise, the act itself and the mark it

42 _{Algardi’s will is published in Montagu 1985, vol. 1, pp. 231-232, on p. 231: ‘Item lascia, come} sopra, a Domenico, Ercole, Pauolo, e Girolamo suoi Giovani le robe, che ha alla Fonderia proportionamente conforme parerà al detto Sig. Gasparo Morone […] dichiarando dette robbe consisitere in modelli di creta, forme di gesso, e ferramenti da lavorare, da consegnar- seli dopo la sua morte.’ For the inventory of Ferrata’s studio see Golzio 1935.

43 _{For Ercole Ferrata and the Florentine academy see Goldberg 1983, pp. 134-172 and Mon-} tagu 1989, pp. 11-14. For the dispersal of his collection Montagu 1989, p. 16 with reference to Piazza 1698, pp. lxxvi-lxxvii: ‘…riflettendo il medesimo Erede alla dignità, decoro, e mag- nificenza di questa Romana Accademia, mosso dal concetto, e stima di tanti segnalati Ingegni di essa; per mero, & ossequioso genio al loro merito, e valore, fece libero dono della maggior parte de Modelli più grandi, e piu rari alla medema de’scielti, e consegnati con publica scrit- tura al Prencipe, e Primarij Offiziali & illustri sostegni, e Colonne di essa Carlo Fontana, Carlo Maratta, Ciro Ferri, e Domenico Guidi, Lumi, e splendori in tutte e trè le illustri Pro- fessioni de’nostri tempi. Altri preziosi rilievi, e Modelli di Opere insigni del medesimo Fer- rata, e del Cavaglier Algardi, donò alla Biblioteca celeberrima Ambrosana di Milano suá Patria […]. Il rimanente del medesimo Studio fu opportunamente distribuito à diversi Virtuosi In- gegni, ò Allievi del Defonto, overo ad altri Studiosi Giovani Professori di queste nobili Arti d’ogni parte d’Italia, non meno per eterna memoria del medemo Ferrata, che per Gloria di Roma…’

44 _{Baldinucci/Ranalli & Barocchi 1975, vol. 5, p. 389: ‘…dovessero servire per aiuti de’ giovani} studenti.’

Franchezza 175

leaves are somehow conflated into one. As we will see, such a conflation, which is still much apparent in contemporary connoisseurship, is no fortuity, but can rather be related to the actual manner in which we perceive—taking perception in the psychological sense—the products of human activity.

A particular aspect of Rudolf Arnheim’s concept of dynamics proves in-

structive here, namely that of the ‘dynamics of the act of creation.’45 _Arnheim

argues that the ‘motor acts’ by which the artist gives shape to his work, i.e., the stroke of the pen, the pencil or chisel, leave their imprint by their ‘graphological qualities.’ And indeed, as all will know by experience, the qualities of the line drawn by a pen or a pencil, in terms of variation in width, colour, saturation, may depend much on the amount of force applied and the speed with which it

is drawn over the paper.46 _{Arnheim’s argument continues though, for he sug-}

gests that these qualities, on their turn, have a dynamics of themselves: ‘the dynamic traits of the physical motor act,’ he writes, ‘leave reflections […] and show up as dynamic qualities of corresponding character.’ Such a conception seems to be confirmed by our discussion of early modern connoisseurship; as we have seen Mancini and Baldinucci use qualifiers that relate more directly to an activity then to the essentially action-less image, thus suggesting that some- how the image evokes the action that lies at its source.

Further proof for this idea can be found in the work of experimental psy- chologist Jennifer Freyd, whose concept of representational momentum was

discussed above.47 _{In an article from 1983, and in more detail in an article of}

1988 co-authored by Mary Babcock, she has looked at our capacity to read handwritten characters, focussing on the question to what extent the traces left

by the physical act of their creation might contribute to this capacity. 48 _The

most important finding for our discussion is that people, when asked to repro- duce a memorized hand-drawn character, are influenced by the way the initial character had been formed, thus suggesting that people are indeed ‘sensitive to information in the static traces […] of handwritten characters that relates to the

45 _{Arnheim 1974, pp. 417-418.}

46 _{For an analyses of these ‘graphological qualities’ see Perrig 1991, pp. 15-17.} 47 _{See supra, pp. 105-106.}

48 _{Freyd 1983b focuses particularly on the capacity to read handwritten characters. One of the} more ‘encouraging’ finds, as she calls it (p. 345), is that characters with so-called ‘sloppy lines’ with a consistent distortion, that is to say, a distortion that conforms to the drawing direction of the character, are actually more easily recognized than non-distorted characters. While the distortions introduced in this particular experiment, though based on those made when actu- ally drawing the characters, conform only to a certain extent to the graphological qualities of actual handwriting, in Babcock & Freyd 1988 actual hand-drawn characters were used.

Chapter Six

176

original construction of the characters’.49 _{In other words, when we perceive an}

unknown character we not only see a certain pattern of static lines but actually perceive them as lines drawn in a certain order, and in certain directions. Their actual creation is accounted for in the percept of the character.

An interesting addition to these findings has more recently been provided by tracing responses to handwritten characters on a neurological level. Taking as a point of departure recent research on the so-called mirror neuron system, Marieke Longcamp and her colleagues have observed an excitation of parts of the human motor cortex usually associated with the execution as well as the observation of an action (the neural system ‘mirrors’ the action when it is ob-

served) in recognition tasks involving essentially static handwritten letters.50

Although the exact role of the mirror neuron system is still under heavy debate, it seems clear that it plays an important role in action-response coupling; that is to say, our own motor skills are involved in the observation of action and vice

versa.51 _{The research of Longcamp et al. now suggests that the visual traces of}

activity, in this case hand writing, are part of the very same loop. Although it is still difficult to define what this precisely indicates in terms of perception and actual experience, the fact that patterns are excited that can be associated with observing actual actions is a strong indication that traces of actions are in fact perceived in a manner that accounts for the creative act that brought these traces about.

Now, to what extent may the discussion of handwriting contribute to our

understanding of drawings, bozzetti and monumental sculpture?52 _{To start with}

the first, we may argue that many characteristics of the written character can equally be found in drawings, while also the activities that lie at their bases have a lot in common. As we have also seen in chapter four, research in the field of grounded cognition has shown that our own physical experiences with per- forming certain actions, may help us to recognize those actions when per- formed by others, and it seems now not too far fetched to argue that the same

may count for the traces of those actions.53 _{Indeed, learning how to write is to a}

49 _{Babcock & Freyd 1988, p. 125.}

50 _{Longcamp, Tanskanen & Hari 2006; cf. Freedberg & Gallese 2007.}

51 _{For a brief overview of action-perception coupling see Thornton & Knoblich 2006; for a} critical discussion of the mirror neuron system, Looren de Jong & Schouten 2006.

52 _{The significance of these findings for the discussion of aesthetic experience has been stressed} by Freedberg & Gallese 2007, who predict that similar findings will be obtained using as stimuli works of art in which such traces can be found (p. 202).

53 _{Casile & Giesse 2006, cf. Calvo-Merino et al. 2006 and Reithler et al. 2007. These recent} studies contradict Arnheim 1974, pp. 413-414 who argued against ‘pedestrian theories’ up- holding that dynamics may be dependent on our previous experiences.

Franchezza 177

certain extent also learning how to read, and there are substantial grounds to assume that much of our capacity to sense the actions that lay at the basis of a drawing is in fact grounded in our experiences in writing. As has often been observed, historically as well the development of handwriting and draughts- manship share common factors, and surely not only the Leonardo da Vinci’s of

this world will have practiced their penmanship in doodles and drawings.54 _In

truth, the better connoisseur would have had some actual practice in drawing as

well; Baldassare Castiglione already stressed in his Il cortegiano of 1528 that the

courtier needs to have a basic practice in draughtsmanship in order to develop a

sound judgement on matters of art.55

The step from written character to the bozzetto modelled in clay or wax is

maybe less obvious. Even though the characteristics of the roughly worked material show some affinity with that of the sketch on paper, one could argue that instead another set of experiences is triggered by the roughly modelled clay

of the bozzetto. This must certainly be a set of experiences that is less explicitly

acquired; in this case we have nothing that compares with the thoroughly struc- tured way of learning to handle pen and ink. It is, on the other hand, a set of experiences that is much broader. A fingerprint left in an overripe peach, trac- ing a stick through the wet sand, or playing with the soft wax of a burning can- dle: the experience of manipulating with the hands or a tool a malleable sub- stance is as much something of everyday life as writing a note or a letter. Although we have accordingly some frame of reference to rely on when

confronted with the bozzetto, the sculptor’s feeling with the material is obviously

much more direct: Passeri’s observation that Algardi ‘devoted himself continu- ously to modelling’ may attest to this, as does the fact that one of the first things Bernini demands after having arrived in Paris, or so we read with Chantelou, is material for modelling; even though his assistants had brought some clay from home, Bernini asked if he could not somehow have a whole

load ‘to keep his men busy so they would not be with nothing on their hands.’56

What is more, learning to model in wax and clay was an essential part of the

54 _{Rosand 2002, pp. 61-65, Akker 1991, pp. 151-156, Kemp 1979, pp. 126-130. For writing and} doodling see Gombrich 1999, pp. 212-225.

55 _{Castiglione/Barberis 1998, p. 103 [= I.49]: ‘Prima che a questo proposito entriamo voglio} […] ragionar d’un’altra cosa, la quale io, perciò che di molta importanza la estimo, penso che dal nostro cortegiano per alcun modo non debba esser lasciato addietro: e questo è il saper disegnare ed aver cognizione dell’arte propria del dipingere.’

56 _{Passeri/Hess 1934, p. 195: ‘Davasi continuamente a modellare con la creta nel quale esercizio} riusciva assai spiritoso, e d’un gusto squesito.’ Chantelou/Stanic 2001, p. 55: ‘Qualqu’un de chez lui ayant apporté un morceau de terre à modeler, il m’a demandé s’il y avait un moyen d’en avoir une charretée, afin d’occuper ses gens et qu’ils ne fussent pas sans rien faire.’ For Bernini’s modelling techniques see Gaskell & Lie 1999.

Chapter Six

178

sculptor’s education, a fact also stressed by Ciro Ferri (though he himself was in the first place a painter) who, according to one source, argued that ‘good mod- ellers in a year can become perfect sculptors,’ presenting Algardi as a case in

point.57 _{All in all, the experience of modelling would have brought an advantage}

also when viewing the models by a colleague. Whereas the average person

would certainly see the bozzetto as a series of forces excited on malleable ma-

terial, the sculptor must have had a much more thorough, though equally direct,

understanding of the manner in which these bozzetti were made.

We may indeed argue that with the experience of modelling comes the im- plicit understanding of the material and how it reacts to the pressure excited with the fingers or a tool. The importance of these objects for the artist, then, seems obvious: not only may they function as a nice example to emulate, but

first and foremost, the bozzetto actually shows them the master at work. The

dynamic qualities of the rough sketch, be it on paper or in clay or wax, give the image an unresolved tension which we may define as ‘open’, that is to say open to possibilities, open to interpretation and thus an open invitation to interaction from the spectator, or for that matter, the young sculptor. Yet, it hints at a cer- tain direction; we are invited to follow the line through, to imagine our hands on the damp clay and feel our fingers pressing further. This openness is already apparent in the artist’s first touch of the material. ‘Once begun’, thus writes art historian David Rosand in his exploration of the phenomenology of the draw- ing, ‘the line itself begins to assert a certain will of its own, to challenge the

guiding control of the hand, urging its own agenda.’58 _{Similarly, we may argue}

that also the work of the sculptor, after having placed his hands on the damp clay, continues in such a dialectic manner, a dialectic that remains unresolved and can be picked up again by anyone who lays eyes on it.

57 _{Letter from Torquato Montauti to Apollonio Bassetti, dated 6 October 1674, Rome, in:} Lankheit 1962, p. 251, doc. 92: ‘…ha detto il Sig.r Ciro che i buoni Modellatori in un anno divengono perfetti scultori, et apportò l’esempio dell’Algarbi [= Algardi]…’ For Ferri and sculpture see ibid., pp. 39 ff. and Schlegel 1969. For modelling in the sculptor’s education see also Montagu 1989, pp. 5-6 and p. 199, n. 33.

58 _{Rosand 2002, p. 12; he continues: ‘Whatever initial intention may have inspired the making} of a drawing, whatever external stimulus, the draftsman inevitably finds his attention being commanded by his own line. Whatever its intended structure in the representation, the line becomes an active participant in the act of drawing, in the process of its own making, even asserting its own creative independence. And we, as viewers, acknowledge that independence when we respond to a drawn line, to its substance, its body and personality, its idiosyncratic and vagrant qualities. In searching for descriptive language adequate to our response, we in- voke a full range of kinaesthetic experience. Mixing metaphoric allusion and psychological perception, tactile sensation and somatic awareness, we assign values and qualities, affect and character, to lines and marks.’ See also Cain 2010.

Franchezza 179