Essential Concepts

Designo

While the modern concept of design includes the industrial aspects of planning and engineering, it also implies a rough sketching of the contours of objects by hand. The latter aspect can be traced back to the Italian Renaissance of the 15th century and later.

According to the OED’s description of design in English, “disegno,” the Italian word for drawing or design, developed as a core concept in the plastic arts in the Renaissance and later periods, and has had a major influence on the English word “design,” via the French word “dessin.” It is said to have had a great influence on modern design.

Alberti, who established the methodological principles of linear perspective in the 15th century, called the aspect of forming shapes with lines “disegnamento” or “disegno” in his book De Pictura (1436). According to Alberti, a line is drawn when the rays of light that originate from the back of the eye and reach the edge of the object (the exterior rays) are blocked by the painter’s canvas (vero) placed vertically in the middle of the rays, and this geometrically defined method of line drawing is called “disegnamento.” However, such a method of line drawing had to be the most effective way of presenting the subject or idea to be depicted, and the subject matter had to be arranged in such a way as to make the best use of line perspective. Alberti argued that the beauty of painting is achieved when the methodological and formal principles of line drawing and the meanings of the subject are fully integrated and he can therefore be regarded as a representative of the 15th century Renaissance.

Conversely, Vasari, who was active in the 16th century and wrote Le Vite De’ Piu Eccellenti Pittori, Scultori, e Architettori (1567) in Fiorenza, argued that the work of painting, sculpture, architecture, and so on, which had been separated according to the object of production, had the same underlying formative principle and should therefore be called “Arte,” and named the formative principle “disegno.” According to Vasari, disegno should not be depicted merely geometrically, that is, with a methodology independent of the person who paints it, but should be depicted by the human body, and at the same time, in a way that is convincing to that body. Therefore, even if what is depicted appears to be distorted from the viewpoint of geometrical principles as described by Alberti, it is this distortion that gives a kind of unique reality to the mind and body of the maker and viewer. In this sense, Vasari is considered to have provided the foundation for the Mannerist art of his time.

In the early 17th century, Zuccari presented the concept of “disegno interno” in his books such as Origine et progresso dell’Accademia del dissegno; De Pittori, Scultori, & Architetti di Roma (1604). According to him, disegno is not the geometrical imitation (Alberti) or bodily complement (Vasari) of things existing in the external world but the external projection of ideas already held in the mind. In the process of projecting these ideas, human beings spark off a creative fire with God, who is watching from the inner recesses of their minds. The basis that makes disegno possible is, in Zuccari’s view, the concept held in the mind, which in turn is derived from God. Zuccari’s thought is at the entrance of the baroque way of thinking represented by Leibniz, in which human perception is possible because of divine operations, and thus the representation (image) of the external world is established.

In this way, in the Renaissance and later periods, there is a tense and fluid balance between the external and internal grounds for drawing, and in this sense, the mechanical and the organic are fused in their own way. All of these concepts of disegno were developed as principles of form in Vasari’s definition of “Arte,” but in them we can find antecedents of functionalism, anthropocentrism, algorithms, and other forms of thinking that characterize contemporary design.

(KOGA Toru)

Related Classes

Design Futures Course, Philosophy of Design

References