The silence which speaks

Sprezzatura: the seemingly nonchalant, which in reality is the result of mastery and practice.

In his farewell lecture, Professor Harald Hendrix explores how Italian refinement and Dutch down-to-earthness mirror each other – and what we can learn from that today. Sprezzatura and other discomfort: on Italian refinement, Dutch open curtains and the art of effortlessness.

Anyone who goes in-depth into language not only wants to know how words give meaning, but also what happens when words fall short. “Because language sometimes lets us down,” says Harald Hendrix, “exactly at moments which actually matter.”

Nobody knows that better than artists: they look for possibilities to express exactly that which cannot be said. The Italian philosopher Massimo Cacciari calls this the silenziosa eloquenza — the eloquence of silence. The ratio in a painting by Lucio Fontana, or the opened dress seen in Piero della Francesca’s Madonna del Parto: by placing what is missing in the foreground, it is made visible.

Opposite this silence, Hendrix places words which themselves express something which cannot be said. Words which cannot be translated without losing their shine in the process — such as the Dutch gezellig or the Italian sprezzatura. Such understandings form cultural keys: they not only unlock meanings, but also forms of viewing, attitudes to the world.

A window by the Amstel

In order to get what sprezzatura means, Hendrix moves the perspective from Italy to Amsterdam, to the house on the Amstel where Rembrandt's famous portrait of Jan Six still hangs. It depicts Six, the 17th-century scholar, art lover and friend of the painter's, in a pose which is relaxed and full of attention at the same time: his glance half averted, his posture natural but calculating.

Hendrix argues that with this portrait, Rembrandt wanted to give a Dutch answer to Raphael’s Baldassare Castiglione - the sixteenth-century Italian painting embodying the concept of sprezzatura. The loose painterliness, the suggestion of effortlessness, the restraint disguised as down-to-earthness: all of these are echoes of that Italian court culture in which the depicted Castiglione wrote his famous book Il Cortegiano (in English: The Courtier).

Jan Six knew that book well. He even had it translated in 1661 as De volmaekte hoveling (in English: The Perfect Courtier), with the term lossigheid as the Dutch representation of sprezzatura. A translation with approaches the core well: the seeming nonchalance, which in reality is the result of mastery and practice.

The art of hiding art

In Il Cortegiano, Castiglione describes how the ideal courtier should not showcase his skill, his knowledge and his effort, but hide them instead. “True art,” he writes, “is that which does not appear to be art.” Because he who makes the most difficult things seem a matter of fact inspires amazement — maraviglia.

Hendrix connects this insight with the art of painting: Rembrandt's loose brush strokes, the refined carelessness of Frans Hals or Titiaan. The same applies there: it is the hidden effort that makes the work breathe. As written by the Italian philosopher Paolo D’Angelo, sprezzatura is the paradox of art which hides itself - and then reveals itself as art because of this.

But still, there is something uncomfortable in that effortless elegance. Sprezzatura requires restraint, but also feigning: the art to present yourself as different than you are. Castiglione's courtier plays his role with subtle manipulation - like how Machiavelli teaches his ruler that power often requires semblance. It is exactly that field of tension between seeming and being which captivates Hendrix: the thin line between grace and deceit, between down-to-earthness and strategy.

A Dutch discomfort

The Dutch interaction with sprezzatura, as Hendrix showed, has never been open-minded. We are a people of open curtains, literally and figuratively. Where Italians cherish their façades, the Dutch showcase their openness instead. The idea that semblance can be a form of truth quickly incites distrust among us.

That is what makes the Dutch history of sprezzatura interesting. Because here too, the art of effortlessness has never been far away. Rembrandt painted with lossigheid, Vondel wrote with flexible grandeur and the young Jan Six cultivated an elegance which was Dutch in tone, Italian in spirit. But something still grates: the desire for refinement conflicts with the Calvinistic preference for ease.

That cultural discomfort returns in other forms today. In the modern fashion industry, for instance, where sprezzatura has become a lifestyle brand, a pose: “The art of looking as if it takes you no effort.” An ironic reversal of Castiglione’s ideal, because exactly that careless image hides endless work, practice and calculation.

More than appearance

To Hendrix, sprezzatura is more than a style or pose; it is a moral and intellectual attitude. In Castiglione’s world, it is the foundation of courtesy — the way in which one discusses without dominating, convinces without compelling, charms without flattering.

In this, Hendrix sees an unexpected kinship with a typical Dutch tradition: that of consultation, the seeking of consensus, the poldering. Castiglione's courtier and today's administrator share the same task: to keep a conversation going in which everyone gets to speak, nobody has the final say just because. This then makes Sprezzatura not the masquerade of power, but the art of courtesy — the ability to make a difference without confrontation.

Courtesy as a science

In his final reflection, Hendrix connects this Renaissance elegance with the forming task of the university. De volmaekte hoveling, that is the title of the Dutch translation, but the subtitle was more telling: Schat van wetenschap noodigh tot welleventheyt (in English: Treasure of science required for courtesy).

This courtesy, Hendrix says, deserves to have a place in the academy today too. In an era of polarisation and loud opinions, the art of listening, speaking with grace and hiding of effort may be more urgent than ever before. Sprezzatura is not a pose, but a discipline: a practice in balance, subtlety and style.

Light at the end of the tunnel

At the end of his farewell lecture, after a career devoted to Italian literature and its influence on European thought, Harald Hendrix looked ahead. Three years for now, in 2028, Italy will commemorate that Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano was published five centuries ago; followed soon after that by the anniversary of Machiavelli’s Il Principe (in English: The Prince). Both men wrote in an era of crisis, war and moving balances of power, but their works show that civilisation can also arise from disruption.

That thought, Hendrix says, can cheer us up in an era which is once again looking for balance between truth and semblance, knowledge and power, reason and feeling. Like how Castiglione’s courtier found his grace in restraint, so can the current academic find his humanity in nuance, in the art of making the difficult seem easy.

An art which, thanks to Professor Harald Hendrix, will be engaged with in Utrecht for a long time to come.

Text: Annemiek Vermeulen