Benedetto Croce, ‘A Theory of the Macchia’ trans. Ricardo De Mambro Santos

Abstract

Originally written in 1905 and included in the volume Problemi di estetica (Questions on Aesthetics), first published in 1910, this short yet dense essay by Benedetto Croce explores the aesthetic and critical implications of the concept of macchia. The starting point of this philosophical investigation is offered by a little-known volume by Vittorio Imbriani, entitled La quinta promotrice (The Promoting Scene), printed in Naples in 1869, in which the author applies the notion of macchia within the emerging ambit of Art Criticism, in reference to the works of Domenico Morelli and, in particular, his Deposition of Christ, of which he provides a detailed, highly evocative and poetic ekphrasis. Defined by Imbriani as the propulsive force, the preliminary idea of every pictorial creation, the concept of macchia will be associated by Croce with one of the foundational notions of his own Aesthetics and set genealogically in relation with the paradigm of intuition as the truly distinctive quality of art in general, beyond any possible differentiation among the particular arts.