ABSTRACT
Pittoresco is the medium-specific early modern precursor to Wölfflin’s medium-crossing and period-defining “painterly” (malerisch). Although the term possessed a range of meanings in early modern Italy,2 it was Marco Boschini’s usage in his Carta del navegar pitoresco (1660)—the first extended art theoretical discussion of painterly brushwork-that underscored the conspicuous handiwork and unfinished appearance characteristic of paintings by Titian, Jacopo Tintoretto, and other Venetian masters. The surfaces of their paintings blurred the distinction between making and representing. With pittoresco, a cognate of words like abbozzare, macchiare, and sprezzare that described the sketchy marks typical of preparatory work, Boschini not only added to the vocabulary of facture that could be used to describe the finished canvas, but also increased the desirability of visible handiwork in the end product.3
