1349-0915

AA11392848

4113195

This paper explores the concepts of disegnament and disegno in the Italian Renaissance and later periods from the perspective of organic and inorganic principles and evaluates how these concepts emerged as sources for modern design. Leon Battista Alberti, in the 15th century, used the word disegnament to refer to the process of drawing lines in compliance with perspective. This process followed a mechanistic principle. However, he argued that a painting would only reach perfection when the mechanistic representation is fused with the organic principle to compose elements dramatically. The line drawing, namely the disegnament, should, thus, be based on mechanistic and organic logic simultaneously. Conversely, Giorgio Vasari, in the 16th century, believed that the mechanistic principles shape the external world and the organic principles emanate from the inner world, comprising elements such as ideas and concepts, fused in the artist’s physicality—occhio and mano. According to him, this principle of drawing is called disegno. Giovanni Tuccari, at the threshold of the 17th century, the age of Baroque, defined the contours of the outer world as a result of obscuring the light of inner reason and coalesced the mechanistic modeling principle, related to the outer surface, with the organic modeling principle of Idea and God. This organic principle was called disegno interno. These concepts, which stand for principles that enable a thing to exist originally, balanced organic and inorganic logic in their own ways. Contemporary design continues to employ tense and liquid balances to defi ne its concepts, depending on the context of the design.