Sprezzatura

It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with the blog. I have considered deleting the account many times, but I just can't bring myself to do it for whatever reason. I think it's because there's so much of me contained herein... because I try to be more honest here than anywhere else. I need not follow any rules here - grammatical, social, or otherwise (unless I want to). ;)

Here's the latest drawing I did of a painting by Raphael. I used pencil, compressed charcoal, and some pastels. It's a portrait of Baldassare Castiglione. Castiglione wrote The Book of the Courtier, in which he coined the Italian word "sprezzatura," meaning "effortless grace." It is the ability to perform difficult actions with the appearance of ease and nonchalance. The opposite of sprezzatura is affectation.

This word has been on my mind for the last few weeks. Sprezzatura requires years of practice so that the act becomes almost a second nature. I find it ironic that it also seems to require many years of soul searching and loads of courage, even lots of practice, to know and display what is our true nature - who we really are underneath all the accumulated muck and lies. hmm...

BTW, it took me what seemed like forever to finish the drawing for our final project. I don't think I would be drawing another portrait anytime soon...