Much more than just drawing or designing

Disegno is much more than designing or drawing. Disegno is a concept developed in the Renaissance, especially by the artists Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. The concept of disegno was one of the central pillars of artistic theory and practice. 

Disegno is an Italian word that translates as "drawing" or "design". In the Renaissance context, however, it went beyond the technical act of drawing to embody a deeper artistic and intellectual process. To understand what disegno means in its concrete sense for art and design today, we need to look at history. Renaissance theorists, most notably Giorgio Vasari, saw Disegno as the essence of the visual arts, including painting, sculpture, and architecture. They believed that disegno was not merely a tool for sketching or preparation, but the foundation of the entire creative process. For Vasari, disegno was the very soul of artistic invention, combining both technical skill and intellectual understanding. Thus, Disegno encompassed both the mental conception and the manual execution of a work of art. Artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo believed that the process of drawing was not primarily about copying nature, but rather about translating and transforming it. Through drawing, the artist could manifest his or her inner vision and understanding of form, structure, and movement. 

For Leonardo da Vinci, disegno was closely linked to the scientific observation of nature. His sketches were a means of exploring and understanding the world, especially the anatomy of the human body and the mechanics of natural forms. For Michelangelo, disegno was also deeply intellectual, rooted in his belief that the act of drawing allowed the artist to express divine forms. In his view, the artist's hand was guided first and foremost by submission to the divine word (or grammar) according to which the world was created. In this sense, Disegno was seen as an act of following both the divine movements of creation and the human intellect. Renaissance thinkers believed that God had created the world through design, and thus artists who practiced disegno were in a sense restructuring (today we would say recoding) divine creativity. The artist's ability to conceive and render form was seen as an active reflection of the divine will to transform the inanimate into the living present, but it also required the artist to employ rational thought and develop his or her own techniques. 

In Renaissance thought, disegno was far more than simple drawing; it was a blend of intellect, creativity, and the development of individual technical skill, encompassing the artist's ability to conceive a form in the mind and execute it with precision. For figures such as Leonardo and Michelangelo, it represented the highest expression of the artist's potential, bridging the gap between art and science, intellectual vision and manual labor. 

Poetry also played an important role in shaping the intellectual and philosophical foundations of disegno during the Renaissance. The connection between poetry and disegno reflected the Renaissance humanist belief that the arts were interrelated, each contributing to an elevated intellectual and spiritual or aesthetic ideal. Renaissance humanists viewed poetry and the visual arts as related forms of intellectual and creative expression. Just as disegno was seen as the visual embodiment of an artist's inner ideas and conceptions, poetry was considered the verbal articulation of the poet's thoughts and devotion to the movement of creation. Both were considered products of the intellect and the aesthetic imagination, using different mediums - words or images - to express profound truths. 

The classical idea of ut pictura poesis (as is painting, so is poetry), derived from Horace's Ars Poetica, emphasized that both poetry and painting (or drawing) shared the same goals of aesthetic realization and meaning. Both were ways of recalling nature, but also of transcending it to convey deeper philosophical or spiritual truths. This parallel encouraged artists to view disegno not merely as a technical skill, but as a high intellectual pursuit akin to poetry. -

Poetry, especially in its classical and Renaissance forms, often dealt with ideals of beauty, harmony, and proportion - concepts central to disegno. The Renaissance revival of Neoplatonism, which fused classical philosophy with Christian thought, held that both poetry and the visual arts were reflections of divine beauty and truth. In this context, both poets and artists were seen as inspired creators who had the ability to glimpse and articulate these higher truths. 

Artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, deeply immersed in this intellectual atmosphere, would have understood their work in disegno as part of this broader cultural project. Michelangelo, in particular, was a poet himself, and his sonnets often wrestled with themes of beauty, creativity, and divine inspiration-many of the same themes that underpinned his work in the visual arts. 

The Renaissance ideal of the imagination played a crucial role in both poetry and disegno. The imagination was seen as a creative and intellectual faculty that allowed both poets and artists to transcend the mere copying of nature and instead give form to ideas, emotions, and spiritual truths. 

Disegno, like poetry, relied on the artist's ability to use the imagination to envision forms before they were physically created. Through drawing, the artist gave tangible form to concepts that existed in the mind, much as a poet uses language to give form to thoughts and feelings. This intellectual process was celebrated as one of the highest human capacities, linking artistic creation with divine creation.

Leonardo da Vinci, for example, spoke of the mind's eye, an inner vision that allowed the artist to conceive a work before bringing it into physical reality. Similarly, the poet's imagination could see beyond the surface of things and articulate the essence of beauty and meaning. 

Michelangelo's own poetry offers an intimate glimpse into how he perceived the relationship between poetry, intellect, and the visual arts. His sonnets and madrigals often explore the tension between the material world and the spiritual ideal, themes that also appear in his sculptural and architectural work. 

In his poetry, Michelangelo reflected on the struggle to express the divine through human art, mirroring the intellectual effort behind his disegno. He saw both poetry and the visual arts as imperfect attempts to convey perfection, acknowledging the limitations of human creativity while celebrating its potential to elevate the soul. His famous sonnet to Vittoria Colonna, for example, speaks of the inadequacy of words and physical forms to capture true beauty and virtue - reflecting his understanding that both poetry and drawing aim to capture something beyond the physical realm. 

During the Renaissance, many artists were deeply influenced by the classical tradition, in which poetry, philosophy, and art were seen as complementary forms of intellectual pursuit. Poets such as Petrarch and Dante were revered for their ability to express philosophical ideas in poetic language, and their work had a profound influence on visual artists. Dante's Divine Comedy, for example, inspired artists such as Botticelli and Michelangelo, who used their disegno to depict the profound spiritual and philosophical themes found in the poem. 

Michelangelo's depiction of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel is a monumental example of how disegno could engage with poetic themes, translating complex theological and philosophical ideas into visual form in much the same way that Dante's poetry did through language. 

The role of poetry in the intellectual framework of Renaissance disegno was profound. Poetry provided a theoretical and philosophical parallel that elevated drawing beyond a mere technical skill to an act of intellectual and spiritual expression. Both poets and artists embraced the same Neoplatonic ideals of beauty, truth, and divine inspiration, using their respective mediums to reveal deeper philosophical and spiritual truths. Disegno, like poetry, was understood as a reflection of the mind's eye, transforming invisible ideas into visible forms, bridging the gap between human creativity and divine creation.

Everything that was valid for Disegno in the Renaissance in terms of artistic, philosophical or poetic considerations is still valid today. In particular, the question of how we build our world according to what is, facing all the social, political, ecological and economic problems of our time, is more important than ever.

Today, the reference for the how, according to what, has changed completely. In the Renaissance, people believed in an almighty God, identified with the fundamental and intelligible force of the creation of being.

In our increasingly complex reality, from a scientific point of view, anything goes, anything seems possible. But there is one thing that seems to be missing: a guiding hand in addition to random chance.

As physicist Stephen Hawking put it:
"The particle emission from black holes seems to suggest that God not only plays dice, but occasionally throws the dice where you can't see them." End of quote.