The London Lounge

In a brief review of a CD I found recently with Vivaldi’s concertos for lute and mandolin by Il Giardino Armonico, musicologist Giuseppe Clericetti quotes the following passage from “Il cannochiale aristotelico” by Emanuele Tesauro (1654):

“It is, then, an oratorical virtue to incur some vice, now and then negligently letting some cacophony appear so as to escape a vice of too great cleanliness, which reveals the artifice by unmasking it. Hence we may see many harshnesses and hissings and roarings studiously scattered in orations and in Latin and Greek poems, with such grace that negligence itself is diligence and voluntary error becomes a figure.[…] Thus an expert cittern player lets a false string sound in his harmonious performance; and this upset is rehearsed, either to laugh at those who will laugh at it, or to seem to be playing by instinct and not art, or to make an illustration of barbarism. Thus, finally, the oration seems enlivened rather than mannered”.

I wanted to share this as I couldn’t help noticing the analogy with such difficult to explain (but easier to illustrate) notions as sprezzatura, nonchalance and, ultimately elegance in all its manifestations: appearance, conduct, thought, relations…
Elegance is created harmony and unity, yes, but a masterfully placed inadvertence brings the creation to life. I think this is the field where taste vs. rules operates, but one must beware of the danger of trespassing into the realm of clownery
Perfection kills the art, because it is unnatural. At the same time, however, wild disorder or neglect has no artistic merit. Perceived beauty is often a matter of contrast and imperfection only enhances it.
In matters of elegant dress, some degree of fantasy is necessary and desirable to please the eye that otherwise tires of too much order and coordination. Be it a coloured silk scarf, a contrasting pocket square, a subtle twist to the cut of a coat, the way a hat is worn, something needs to break the neatness, enliven one’s look and lend it something of the wearer’s personality.

“Thus, finally, the oration seems enlivened rather than mannered”.



(By the way, to me this is havane or tabac)

There is a similar expression in a Ben Johnson poem - although it applies to a woman's dress - no doubt, the principle is the same:

Simplex Munditiis
Still to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powder'd, still perfumed:
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face
That makes si mplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all th' adulteries of art;
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

NJS

Ahh, what a face filled with character! replete with a good cigar rolled on the smooth thigh of a virgin. What marvellous thought processes shared with the members! What sublime poetry!

JMB

Costi’s point reminds of a passage from Sextus Empiricus, that great master of ancient scepticism. In Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Sextus recalls that the famous painter Appeles had unsuccessfully tried to represent with utmost perfection the foam of a gasping horse. After several attempts he gave up and, in rage, flung at the painting the sponge with which he used to wipe his brushes. Then, eventually, the sponge unexpectedly produced on the painting the very effect he was in search for. – Sextus argues that ataraxy will eventually befall the person who, in like manner, gives up the attempt to arrive at absolute truths.

Now, I am certainly not to suggest that a gentleman should in despair, like Appeles, throw his ties and shirts throughout his dressing room, whenever he thinks he looks short of sartorial perfection. Sprezzatura, no less than sceptical ataraxy, will often arise out of sheer serependity…

Costi's beautiful citation, along with the other instances adduced above, show that this is a pervasive if not universally acknowledged cultural value. The Japanese concept of wabi-sabi expresses a world view valuing simplicity and harmony, but it has also been called "a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is the beauty of things modest and humble. It is the beauty of things unconventional."

Traditionally central Asian rug makers of certain tribal groups weave deliberate flaws into their rugs, especially those of the finest and most intricate quality, on the principle that perfection is the prerogative of Allah.

And further to the early modern European expression of sprezzatura in women's attire is Herrick's well-known lyric "Delight in Disorder". I think it has been posted here before, but in case it has not:

Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
Delight in Disorder

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness;
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribands to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in every part.

Notes

Line 2] wantonness: gaiety, but no doubt with other suggestions.

Line 3] lawn: fine linen resembling cambric.

Line 5] stomacher: embroidered vest.

Couch - I was just thinking of the convention in Persian rug-making when I read your post - and Herrick's lines, of which you remind us, are very evocative (exemplified. perhaps, by Fragonard's painting of a Girl on a Swing).

Two other verses appeal to me in this regard: first, Byron's lines:

Talk not to me of a name great in story,
The days of our youth are the days of our glory.
The myrtles and ivies of sweet two and twenty
Are worth all your laurels - 'though ever so plenty.

and Edward FitzGerald's transliterative quatraine:

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes - or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face
Lighting a little Hour or two - is gone.

Maybe we see too much, in a useless striving for temporal perfection, the vanity of it all.

NJS[/i][/i]

couch wrote:Traditionally central Asian rug makers of certain tribal groups weave deliberate flaws into their rugs, especially those of the finest and most intricate quality, on the principle that perfection is the prerogative of Allah.

Shantung also features some precious imperfections, albeit they are not introduced by the weaver, but by the silkworms themselves. The silkworms sometimes spin the same cocoon resulting in the formation of knots which are later seen on the fabric. The irregular surface, produced by the knots, is, indeed, aesthetically appreciated. This imperfection is so cherished that poor quality shantung is sometimes recognised through the presence of imperfect imperfections...