teachers` resource - Courtauld Institute of Art

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TEACHERS’ RESOURCE
MANTEGNA TO MATISSE:
MASTER DRAWINGS FROM THE COURTAULD GALLERY
CONTENTS
1: INTRODUCTION TO THE EXHIBITION
2: HOW TO READ A DRAWING
An investigation into some of the key components that can be
considered universal to the practice of drawing
3: DRAWING IN THE MASTER’S STUDIO
A historical overview of the practice of drawing in relation to the
education of young artists
4: DRAWING THE LINE
Asks the question of where drawing ends and painting begins
5: MAKING PAPER
A historical look at paper making in Europe and some of the issues
faced by conservators today in terms of displaying works on paper
6: EXPRESSIVE ARTS
Artist Matthew Krishanu investigates his own practice of drawing
and an education project
7: GLOSSARY OF TERMS
8: REGARDE!: QUELLE FEMMES?
A french language exercise discussing how the female form
has been portrayed by different artists. Includes a full English
translation
9: TEACHING RESOURCES CD
Including 60 images from the exhibition specially formated for use
with interactive white boards or in school
MASTER DRAWINGS FROM THE COURTAULD GALLERY
Compiled and produced by Joff Whitten and Mary Camp
SUGGESTED CURRICULUM LINKS FOR
EACH ESSAY ARE MARKED IN BLUE
To book a visit to the gallery or to discuss any of the education
projects at The Courtauld Gallery please contact:
e: [email protected]
t: 0207 848 1058
A full set of academic references for material included is available
on request
Cover image:
Johannes Stradanus (Jan van der Straet)
Pearl Diving
Around 1596
Pen and brown ink with wash and white bodycolour
Right:
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Au lit (detail)
Around 1896
Graphite and black chalk
Unless otherwise stated all images
© The Samuel Courtauld Trust,
The Courtauld Gallery, London
WELCOME
The Courtauld Institute of Art runs an
exceptional programme of activities
suitable for young people, school
teachers and members of the public,
whatever their age or background.
We offer resources which contribute
to the understanding, knowledge and
enjoyment of art history based upon the
world-renowned art collection and the
expertise of our students and scholars.
I hope the material will prove to be both
useful and inspiring.
Henrietta Hine
Head of Public Programmes
The Teachers’ Resources are intended
for use by secondary schools and colleges
and by teachers of all subjects for their
own research. The essays are written by
early career academics from The Courtauld
Institute of Art and we hope the material
will give teachers and students from all
backgrounds access to the academic
expertise available at a world renowned
college of the University of London. Each
essay is marked with suggested links to
subject areas and key stage levels.
We hope teachers and educators will
use these resources to plan lessons,
organise visits to the gallery or gain
further insight into the exhibitions at
The Courtauld Gallery.
Joff Whitten
Gallery Education Programmer
The Courtauld Institute of Art
1: INTRODUCTION
TO THE EXHIBITION
The Courtauld Gallery holds one of the
most important collections of drawings in
Britain. Organised in collaboration with The
Frick Collection in New York, this exhibition
presents a magnificent selection of some
sixty of its finest works. It offers a rare
opportunity to consider the art of drawing
in the hands of its greatest masters,
including Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci,
Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Goya, Manet,
Cézanne and Matisse.
The exhibition opens with a group of
works dating from the 15th century, from
both Northern and Southern Europe.
An exquisite and extremely rare early
Netherlandish drawing of a seated female
saint from around 1475-85 is rooted in
late medieval workshop traditions. It was
also at this time that drawing assumed a
new central role in nourishing individual
creativity, exemplified by a sheet with two
rapid pen and ink sketches by Leonardo
da Vinci. These remarkably free and
exploratory sketches show the artist
experimenting with the dynamic twisting
pose of a female figure for a painting of
Saint Mary Magdalene. For Renaissance
artists such as Leonardo, drawing, or
disegno, was the fundamental basis of all
the arts: the expression not just of manual
dexterity but of the artist’s mind and
intellect.
These ideas about the nature of drawing
achieved their full expression in the
flowering of draughtsmanship in the 16th
century. At the heart of this section of the
exhibition is Michelangelo’s magisterial
The Dream. Created around 1533, this
highly complex allegory was made by
Michelangelo as a gift for a close friend
and it was one of the earliest drawings to
be produced as an independent work of
art. More typically, drawings were made
in preparation for other works, including
paintings, sculptures and prints. Pieter
Bruegel the Elder’s engaging scene of
drunken peasants cavorting at a festival in
the Flemish village of Hoboken was drawn
in 1559 in preparation for a print. Whereas
Michelangelo sought ideal divinely inspired
beauty in the human figure, Bruegel here
revels in the disorder of everyday life.
Despite the important preparatory function
of drawing, many of the most appealing
works in the exhibition resulted from
artists reaching for their sketchbooks to
capture a scene for their own pleasure –
Parmigianino’s Seated woman asleep is
a wonderful example of such an informal
study surviving from the early 16th century.
Drawn approximately 100 years later in
around 1625, Guercino’s Child seen from
behind retains the remarkable freshness
and immediacy of momentary observation.
Guercino was a compulsive and brilliantly
gifted draughtsman. Here the red chalk
lends itself perfectly to the play of light on
the soft flesh of the child sheltering in its
mother’s lap.
No less appealing in its informality is
Rembrandt’s spontaneous and affectionate
sketch of his wife, Saskia, sitting in bed
cradling one of her children. The exhibition
offers a striking contrast between this
modest domestic image and Peter Paul
Rubens’s contemporaneous depiction of
his own wife, the beautiful young Helena
Fourment. Celebrated as one of the great
drawings of the 17th century, this unusually
large work shows the richly dressed Helena
– who was then about 17 – moving aside
her veil to look directly at the viewer.
Created with a dazzling combination of red,
black and white chalks, this drawing was
made as an independent work of art and
was not intended for sale or public display.
In its imposing presence, mesmerising skill
and subtle characterisation, it is the equal
of any painted portrait.
The central role of drawing in artistic
training is underlined in a remarkable
sheet by Charles Joseph Natoire from
1746. It shows the artist, seated in the left
foreground, instructing students during a
life class at the prestigious Académie royale
in Paris. Drawing after the life model and
antique sculpture was considered essential
in the 18th and 19th centuries.
One of the great champions of this
academic tradition was Jean Auguste
Dominique Ingres. The beautiful elongated
forms of the reclining nude in his Study for
the ‘Grand Odalisque’, 1814, represents
the highest refinement of a precise yet
expressive linear drawing style rooted
in the academy. Outside the academy,
drawing could offer the artist a means of
liberating creativity. Goya’s Cantar y bailar
(Singing and dancing), 1819-20, comes
from one of the private drawing albums
which the artist used to inhabit the world of
his dreams and imagination.
Canaletto’s expansive and meticulously
composed View from Somerset Gardens,
looking towards London Bridge is one of
several highlights of a section exploring
the relationship between drawing and the
landscape. This group stretches back as
early as Fra Bartolomeo’s Sweep of a river
with fishermen drawn in around 1505-09,
and also includes a particularly strong
selection of landscapes from the golden
age of the British watercolour. The interest
in landscape is nowhere more powerfully
combined with the expressive possibilities
of watercolour than in the work of J.M.W.
Turner. His late Dawn after the Wreck of
around 1841 was immortalised by the critic
John Ruskin, who imagined the solitary dog
shown howling on a deserted beach to be
mourning its owner, lost at sea. For Ruskin,
this was one of Turner’s ‘saddest and most
tender works’.
The Courtauld collection includes an
outstanding selection of drawings
and watercolours by the great French
Impressionist and Post-Impressionist
artists for whom the Gallery is most
famous. Apples, Bottle and Chairback is
one of Cézanne’s finest late works in any
technique. Here we see the artist pushing
watercolour to its extreme through his
extraordinary intuitive but masterful
handling of successive layers of coloured
washes over luminous white paper.
Another highlight of this group is the
equally remarkable large crayon drawing
by Cézanne’s younger contemporary,
Georges Seurat. His standing female nude
materialises in an almost unfathomable
manner from an intricate web of curving
crayon lines. The exhibition concludes
with work by the two greatest artists of
the 20th century, Picasso and Matisse,
who reinvented the art of drawing for the
modern age.
The Courtauld’s drawings collection is
largely the result of a series of remarkable
individual gifts. They include the drawings
presented by Samuel Courtauld alongside
his collection of French Impressionist
paintings, the bequest by Sir Robert Witt
of some 3,000 drawings in 1952, and Count
Antoine Seilern’s Princes Gate bequest
which, in 1978, brought many of the
SPANNING SOME 500
YEARS, MANTEGNA
TO MATISSE OFFERS
AN OPPORTUNITY TO
STUDY AND ENJOY A
REMARKABLE ARRAY
OF MASTERPIECES
”
most famous individual drawings into the
collection. Additionally, the works in the
exhibition reveal rich and intriguing earlier
collecting histories in which artist collectors
such as Peter Lely in the 17th century and
Thomas Lawrence and Joshua Reynolds in
the 18th century feature alongside some
of the great princely and connoisseurial
collectors of Europe.
Mantegna To Matisse: Master Drawings
From The Courtauld Gallery is organised
under the auspices of the IMAF Centre
for Drawings which was established in
2010 to support the study, conservation
and public enjoyment of The Courtauld’s
collection. The catalogue accompanying
the exhibition has been prepared in
collaboration with The Frick Collection
and features twenty authors contributing
entries on individual works in their
specialist areas, often with new technical
research undertaken at The Courtauld.
The exhibition also aims to celebrate
the great versatility and diversity of
draughtsmanship and invites audiences
to consider what makes a master drawing.
Image:
Édouard Manet
La Toilette (detail)
1860
Red chalk, contours incised for transfer
CURRICULUM LINKS: KS3+
Art and Design, History, Art History, and
other Humanities
2: HOW TO READ
A DRAWING
“Drawing is a line around a think”
Marion Blackett Milner On Not Being Able
to Paint, London, 1950
In order to read a drawing, one should
first establish a definition of what a
drawing is. This definition, however, can
prove elusive. Deanna Petherbridge,
a respected contemporary artist and
professor of drawing, argues in her book
entitled ‘The Primacy of Drawing’ (2010)
that drawing resists every attempt at a
simple definition. Rather, she characterizes
drawing as ‘a curious, paradoxical process,
so intertwined with seeing that the two can
hardly be separated.’ Part of the difficulty
in defining drawing is that it embraces
many processes and appears in many forms
from the unfinished sketch (described as
non-finito by 16th century Italian writers) to
the highly finished presentation drawing
(finito). Drawing is both a thing in itself
and more than itself: it is an independent
practice, but is also identified with painting,
printmaking, sculpture, architecture
and design, and a whole host of other
traditional and contemporary media. It can
be as simple as a few lines or as complex as
the most intricate painting.
Not only artists, but also art historians
and even philosophers have thought and
written a great deal about what a drawing
is and their theories are various. The French
philosopher, Jacques Derrida, one of the
most important postmodernist theorists
of the 20th century, stated that ‘drawing
is the hypothesis of sight’. This statement
closely links drawing not only with vision,
as Petherbridge does, but also to a process
of dynamic and critical thinking. According
to Derrida, the genesis of a drawing occurs
Image:
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Study for ‘La Grande Odalisque’
1814
Graphite
HOW TO READ A DRAWING
Written by Mary Camp
CURRICULUM LINKS: KS3/4+
Art and Design, Art History, History and
other humanities
in a moment of blindness since the artist
must look away from the thing he wishes to
depict to face the blank page on which he
will draw. In that moment he sees only what
is in his imagination.
Derrida’s explanation corresponds
rather nicely to what Leonardo da Vinci
hypothesized five centuries earlier.
Leonardo didn’t address what a drawing
is but rather what sight had to do with
the making of art. He described vision as
‘the most noble sense’ recollecting, and
transcending, notions of a ‘noble heart’.
He understood visual perception as similar
in function to that of a mirror, in which the
‘visual image’ was reflected onto a plane
surface within the eye (the ‘impressiva’),
which was in turn apprehended within the
imagination. As such, the mind ‘possessed’
the image and, through the combination
of mechanical application and geometric
perspective, translated it directly into
painting. This process was dependent upon
an apprenticeship of the hand, in which a
skill must be learned in order to bring the
image into being.
These arguments, and others like them,
were developed inside the framework
of a long-running debate known as the
paragone about the relative merits of
painting versus sculpture, as well as in
relation to the written word. From the time
of the early Renaissance artists aspired to
the status of poets and writers. Painters and
sculptors felt that they should not be seen
as artisans who simply copied nature, but
rather, as composers of form whose work
sprang from their imagination, divinely
inspired. Crucially, in Leonardo’s theory the
path of the image from divine nature to
the surface of the drawing was considered
to be uninterrupted. This process, in its
entirety, was called disegno and it rested
primarily on drawing, the first stage of any
visual project.
Jacopo Pontormo was a sixteenth-century
Florentine painter who apprenticed to
Leonardo for a brief period early in his
career. Towards the end of his life, he
was asked by a leading humanist scholar,
Benedetto Varchi, to express his thoughts
on the paragone. He wrote that the
greatest problem for the artist was not
in the relative qualities of painting or
sculpture but in the quest to render the
subject in its most perfect form:
“The subject [of the paragone] in
itself is so difficult that it cannot be
discussed and even less be resolved,
because there is one thing alone that is
noble, and is the foundation of art, and
that is disegno (you see, anyone who
possesses good disegno will make good
art no matter in what medium) … the
painter is ready and willing to imitate
all the things which nature has made…
[but] It is also possible in painting to
imagine things that would never happen
in nature…surpassing them and through
art giving them grace, composing them
so they are even better than nature….
and to make it seem alive and to do it all
in a flat plane (2 dimensions!).”
Pontormo, typical of the artists who
addressed this issue, stresses the creative
aspect of the artist’s quest to make objects
more perfect, more saturated in their
own essence, than even Nature is able to
accomplish.
These anecdotes suggest that rather
than a definition, one can assemble a list
of essential elements that constitute a
drawing. It could be said that a drawing
is the product that results from the
creative interaction of the artist’s eye and
intellect with an object to be depicted and
translated by his hand upon the page. It
should both reflect that object but also
surpass it in depicting the object’s true
essence. This hypothesis should not be
seen as the single visual truth about an
object but rather, one of many.
With these elements outlined, a strategy
can be proposed for reading a drawing.
First, it is important to examine where, on
the spectrum between finito and non-finito
the drawing sits. This helps to sort out the
purpose of the drawing that should fall into
one of the following categories:
• To copy and record works of art
• Drawing as a preparation for a work of art
• To catch a movement or expression
(Pontormo)
• To explore ideas for the design of
paintings and sculptures
• To produce a beautiful object
• To engage in the process of drawing as
an end in itself
Once the determination of the type of
drawing has been made the subject should
be stated as well as the means the artist
has used to portray it. This would include
a determination of the medium and tools
used to make the drawing. Following this,
one should examine the actual marks on
the paper or ground. The basic units of a
drawing are lines, marks and traces.
The English artist and art critic Roger Fry
wrote in the early 20th century that a single
line remains abstract (even if gestural) while
two lines together become an intelligible
representation of objects. Lines joined
together can shed their two-dimensionality
and suggest planes and contours. The
viewer should ask how the artist has used
lines marks and traces and to what end?
What was the artist’s ‘hypothesis of sight”
and what insight has he brought to bear
upon the subject. How accomplished or
skilled was the hand of the artist and how
successful his project? In a final stage, the
viewer turns to aesthetics, asking how does
the drawing make one feel? The answers
to these questions collectively add up to a
basic reading to the drawing.
In the rest of this article several drawings
will be briefly examined according to the
questions outlined above.
STUDY FOR ‘LA GRANDE-ODALISQUE’
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was
a French artist of the nineteenth century
whose drawing practice followed the
tradition of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts
in Paris where he had been trained.
He would begin with a series of quick
pen-and-ink sketches that were followed
with a combination of life studies of the
model for individual figures and detailed
studies of archaeological furnishings
from his library of engraved models after
antiquity and the Renaissance.
Ingres used a wide variety of papers
and drawing materials in these sketches
including charcoal for light and shadow
studies, pen with ink or sharp graphite for
contour drawings.
Ingres’ Study for ‘La Grande Odalisque’ of
1814 is a finely drawn contour study made
with sharp graphite and it falls into the
second phase of Ingres’ design process as
a study as a preparation for a work of art.
Ingres uses fine lines and delicate sfumato
shading to coax this figure into volumetric
form. He almost completely eliminates
the head and hands, in which personality
resides. Instead we have only the sleek
contours of the female body. The figure,
twisted upon itself, both reveals and
conceals. Ingres has paid great attention
to the drawing of the figure’s visible breast,
buttocks and heels, adding, in these
areas, pressure to the line of contour and
careful shading to enhance the fullness
and sculptural and volumetric feeling
of these forms. Their roundness offers a
rhythmic resistance at regular intervals
down the long undulating line of her back
and leg as it curves across the paper. These
voluptuous forms are so lifelike as to be
graspable by the hand and suggest touch
and texture while the simplified contour of
the back and legs are visually enticing as a
graceful series of lines.
Though Ingres’ anatomy is wrong
- it has been said that a back this long
must be possessed of two extra vertebrae it is deliberately so. It seems that his
‘hypothesis of sight’ puts forward an
DRAWING IS A LINE
AROUND A THINK
”
exotic but tactile form, impossibly long
and turning, to convey the figure’s languid
beauty, and which the contemporary critic
Théophile Gautier termed ‘delicious’
when he first saw the painting of the
Grand Odalisque in 1855. We know when
something is delicious only if we have
tasted it. It seems that Ingres presented
this form for the viewer’s consumption,
which the viewer ‘devours’ with his eyes
and imagined sense of touch. It is a
sensual evocation of an impossible
body that seduces the viewer through
the responses of his own corporeal
and sensory apparatus.
TWO MEN IN DISCUSSION
Rembrandt’s vibrant pen and ink drawing
of two figures clearly belongs to the
category of non-finito. It is open-ended in
construction with a free and spontaneous
character. Two men have paused in the
street and are engaged in conversation.
The figure on the left is perhaps in a
Russian costume and the one on the right
is indeterminate, but neither would be
unusual on the streets of the international
city of Amsterdam in the 1640’s where
Rembrandt lived and worked.
There is breathtaking economy in the
way the artist uses line, or the absence
of line to construct his drawing. For
example, with the figure on the right,
Rembrandt brilliantly allows the plane of
space between the two figures to act as
the edge, or contour, of the man’s lower
cloak. For the boots of the figure on the
left, he articulates the crumpled folds in
the leather without outlining the boots
themselves. The viewer must imagine the
edges, or contours of these objects. As
Roger Fry wrote in 1916, ‘He seems almost
to dread the contour, to prefer to make
strokes either inside or outside of it, and
to trust to the imagination to discover its
whereabouts, anything rather than a final
definite statement which would arrest the
interplay of places.’
The chosen media is very important to
the look and character of this drawing.
Rembrandt’s preferred drawing instrument
was always the pen and here he has
used two types of pens, the quill and the
reed, together with brown ink on a white
European made paper. Early in his career
his preference was almost exclusively
for the quill, made from goose or swan’s
feathers. Because of its suppleness, a quill
was especially suitable for making precise,
fine lines. It is a responsive tool that can
easily change the depth and breadth
of a line merely with subtle changes in
pressure from the artist’s hand. From the
1640s onwards, Rembrandt combined his
use of quills with that of pens made from
marsh reeds. These implements are harder
and more brittle than quills, allowing for
broader, more blunt strokes that give force
to a figure while, at the same time, are
capable of rendering soft tonal accents
and broad areas of light and shade that are
occasionally reminiscent of the lines of a
brush.
This drawing shows Rembrandt embracing
this new tool, reserving the familiar and
more delicate quill for his initial, ‘laying-in’
of the composition and then working it
over with extensive use of the reed pen,
foregrounding the imposing figure on the
left and articulating the gesture of the
animated man on the right, with his hand
extended. One can see that this craning
figure was first drawn with his arms folded
and hands joined together, clasping his
garment to his torso. Rembrandt, using
the reed pen redraws the overly large right
hand on top of the first composition. In the
overlay, the figure gestures emphatically,
his hand held away from his body. Upon
close inspection it is clear that the figure
on the left, whose barrel chested posture
seems slightly affronted, makes eye contact
with the viewer in an almost conspiratorial
way. Does this figure wish to share some
sort of judgment he has made of the man
who seems to be imploring him?
This is one of the few drawings that
Rembrandt signed and dated as can be
seen in the lower right corner of the sheet.
The reason for his signature is not known
but may indicate that Rembrandt made a
gift of this image. It also signifies that even
though it is non-finito in style, the artist
considered it as finished in its present state.
SEURAT’S FEMALE NUDE
Chiaroscuro modeling is generally a
strategy of the finito style that may end up
as a highly finished presentation drawing,
such as Michelangelo’s Dream (Il Sogno),
also on view in this exhibition. In this
instance, however, Seurat has employed
the use of chiaroscuro in an academic
exercise. The young artist, of about
20, appears to have made this drawing
between 1879-81, at one of Paris’ open
studios while he was still a student at the
Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He may have wanted
to practice drawing the female nude, with
which he had little or no instruction at the
academy.
He begins with a line drawing that he
places at the centre of the sheet, in a
conventional full-length format. He then
translates the form into a chiaroscuro
drawing done with conté crayon using
techniques to accentuate the figure’s
curves, such as stumping and shading on
the body and background, which were
common amongst his student peers.
He seems to have had some difficulties
in drawing the anatomy; the outline of
the right breast has been reinforced
several times and appears rather too
angular, while the hands and feet remain
unfinished. Even though this is indicative
of a student drawing, Seurat still shows
brilliance, creating an atmosphere of deep
and velvety shade from which the figure
emerges and which would become a
signature of his work in the 1880s.
Here Seurat uses a warm black crayon in
tandem with a stump impregnated with
pencil to get the deepest, velvety blacks
that the medium can provide. The paper
has a strong ‘tooth’ that catches particles
of the conté crayon as it is dragged across
the paper surface creating a granulated
surface of tiny dots of black surrounded by
white. The areas around the model’s breast
and groin have been stumped to eliminate
the white spaces and create pools of
impenetrable shade.
There are no hard contour lines here. The
model’s soft and curved form emerges out
from and melts into the deep sfumato (or
smoke) surrounding her. Her skin derives
its shimmering texture from the interaction
of the crayon with the textured paper.
The lines convey an extraordinary sense
of energy while the lights and shadows
project a softness and sensuality. The
meaning of this drawing is certainly for the
artist to teach himself, but it also resides
in his distinctive use of the medium to
create atmosphere and sensuality in the
depiction of the female form. He heightens
the viewer’s awareness of the softness and
sensuality of the figure. He surrounds the
form with an atmosphere that envelopes
her even further in a mysterious, velvety
womblike darkness. The form becomes the
essence of something essentially feminine,
enclosed and mysterious.
Many more things may be described and
discussed in these drawings. This essay is
only a small beginning. The meaning of the
mark upon the page depends not only on
the artist who has made it but also upon
the viewer who brings his or her whole
life to a reading of the drawing. Defining
the drawing for oneself, and asking
questions such as why and how the artist
arrived at this ‘hypothesis of sight’ can
lead to knowledge, and pleasure, in many
directions.
Left:
Rembrandt van Rijn
Two men in discussion
1641
Quill and reed pen in brown ink, with corrections in
white bodycolour
Right:
Georges Seurat
Female Nude
Around 1879–81
Black Conté crayon over stumped graphite
3: DRAWING IN THE
MASTER’S STUDIO:
Between tradition and innovation
THE USE OF DRAWINGS AS PART OF
THE TYPICAL PRACTICE OF A MASTER
In the Craftsman’s Handbook (Il Libro
dell’Arte) written between the fourteenth
and the fifteenth century, the painter
Cennino Cennini described drawing as the
foundation and starting point for the art of
painting, advising his readers:
“Do not fail, as you go on, to draw
something every day, for no matter how
little it is, it will be well worth while, and
it will do you a world of good.”
Cennini’s handbook was the first in-depth,
practical manual in the history of art
that described the basic techniques and
recipes needed by an artist to learn his
craft. Cennini provided information from
the grinding of pigments to advice for
creating large murals. His book contains
recipes for mixing paint that differentiate
between country and city chickens. Cennini
counselled that when mixing tempera
paint for the face of a young person or a
fair women the student should ‘use the
yolks of eggs that come from a city hen,
because they have lighter yolks than those
of country hens.”
The practices he outlines, including
drawing, were taught in a master artist’s
workshop. This functioned like an art
school that not only trained students but
produced works on commission and for
sale.
In the sixteenth century, Giorgio Vasari,
author of The Lives of the most eminent
Painters, Sculptors and Architects (Le
Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori et
architettori, Florence, 1550 and 1568)
echoed Cennini’s emphasis on ‘disegno’ as
the father of all visual arts emphasizing the
necessity of extensive study and training in
drawing. In the succeeding centuries more
formal academies came to replace the
workshop method of training artists, but in
the midst of many changes the primacy of
drawing was never questioned
Broadly speaking, drawings can be divided
into two main categories according to
their function: those that are made in
preparation for works of art in other media
- most commonly paintings, sculptures and
prints - and those that are produced as
independent works of art in their own right.
During the late fourteenth century, artists
began to use paper more and more to
explore their ideas for the design of
paintings and sculptures. This exploratory
type of drawing offers a vivid and intimate
glimpse of the artist creatively thinking on
paper.
An example of this creative process is
found in Leonardo’s sheet of Studies
for Saint Mary Magdalene c. 1480-82 on
display in the Courtauld exhibit. When
Leonardo made this drawing the depiction
of Mary Magdalene, with the jar of
ointment she brought to Christ’s tomb on
the morning of his resurrection, was well
established. What Leonardo does that is
novel is to turn the figure and her symbol
into a moment in a dramatic narrative.
Leonardo sketches the figure twice. In
both images Mary Magdalene is opening
the ointment jar she holds in her hand
when something outside of the picture
causes her to turn suddenly in a graceful
contrapposto movement. Leonardo first
sketched the Magdalene looking off to the
left side of the picture. He then sketched
a rectangle around the figure, thinking,
perhaps, about how the composition would
fit on a panel. Next, he reconfigures his
sketch, rotating the figure and bringing the
Magdalene’s gaze to rest on the viewer of
the drawing, in effect making that viewer
the one who disturbs her. This adds to
the impact of the drawing, involving the
viewer in the dramatic narrative. Is this
the moment that she is surprised out of
her sorrow by suddenly seeing the risen
Christ? And if so, is the viewer standing
in his place? In the fifteenth century the
cult of Mary Magdalene was very strong
in Florence. Leonardo’s composition of
the Magdalene would have provided a
powerful and dramatic devotional image
of this popular saint. This sketch reveals an
early step in the creation of a finished work.
In the next steps of the creative process,
artists might refine the pose of a figure
from a live model. The earliest such extant
studies date from the first years of the
fifteenth century. By the eighteenth century
the workshop had been replaced by the
academy as the place where an artist
learned his craft.
Charles-Joseph Natoire’s Life Class at the
Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture
Above:
Leonardo da Vinci
Studies for Saint Mary Magdalene
Around 1480–82
Pen and brown ink
DRAWINGS IN THE MASTERS STUDIO
Written by Anita V. Sganzerla
other humanities
TO DRAW SOMETHING EVERY DAY, FOR NO
MATTER HOW LITTLE IT IS, IT WILL BE WELL
WORTH WHILE, AND IT WILL DO YOU A WORLD
OF GOOD
”
(1746) depicts how a life-drawing class
in the very busy and successful Royal
Academy in Paris might have looked. The
artist immortalizes his students in the act
of drawing the intertwining nude bodies
of two life models perched on a dias at the
center of the picture, holding a difficult
pose in the manner of Hercules and
Antaeus. In spite of the complexity of its
composition and its considerable size, the
Life Class was not made in preparation for
a painting, but is rather a drawing about
the act of drawing.
The students are sitting according to
their rank, with the best and most senior
students given the best views of the
models while the least important students,
seen at the sides and back of the models,
must struggle to get a view at all. The
young boys perched just at the foot of
the dais must have had a very difficult
foreshortened view of the two figures. As
can be noted there are only men and no
women in this room. Only male students
were allowed in a life drawing class and the
models were almost always male, as well.
Women were allowed as clothed models
only for the purpose of sketching their
faces, used for instruction in the depiction
of expression.
To the left of the models and on both sides
of the column on the right stand three
plaster casts of famous antique sculptures,
acting as further reminders of the centrality
of the practice of copying, not only from
live models but also from reproductions
of famous works of art. Natoire, seen in
the lower left corner dressed in a red robe
presents himself in his role of drawing
instructor giving advice to some of his
young students. He is just beneath the
giant Hercules who lends some of his
grandeur by proximity, The cast represents
the so-called Farnese Hercules, a famous
classical statue admired for it characteristic
musculature and pose. Fragments of a
roman copy of the Greek original were
unearthed in Rome between 1540 and 1546
and, once restored, with later additions,
the Hercules became the subject of great
admiration by artists and tourists alike.
There is an amusing irony in noting that
Natoire used his imagination in making this
drawing of a life drawing class, since it is
known that the works of art that decorate
the walls were not all to be found in the
Above:
Charles-Joseph Natoire
The Life Class at the Royal Academy of Painting and
Sculpture
1746
Pen, black and brown ink, grey wash and watercolour
over black chalk
Academy at that time.
Another of the many casts of the Farnese
Hercules, or possibly a marble copy of
the statue - or of its head only - was the
starting point for Peter Paul Rubens’ Study
of the Head of the Farnese Hercules (c.
1608-10). Although not drawing from life
but working from an inanimate model,
Rubens succeeded in instilling his drawn
Hercules with a sense of liveliness while
still expressing the monumentality of the
imposing statue of the hero. A drawing
such as this would have been kept in the
artist’s studio, as part of his archive, and
used as a starting point for more complex
works in various media.
Aside from cases such as the ones
described above, preparatory studies were
often executed with a specific work in
mind. They range from the rough outlining
of the overall composition, to the close
more suitable for the complex multi-figure
composition. He employed fine black chalk
lines for the outlines and detailing of the
figures and setting, and skilfully applied
grey watercolour to achieve an atmospheric
chiaroscuro effect, to be mirrored by the
colouristic effects of the final painting.
observation of details and figures, to
the study of the entire picture including
characters and setting. Arguably the most
finished type of preliminary study is the
so-called cartoon, or cartone: a preparatory
drawing as large as the final work and
made to be easily transferred onto the final
support. Cartoons were most commonly
used for frescoes, but evidence exists of
them being used for paintings as well.
For his large fresco entitled The School of
Athens, in the Vatican Stanze (The Vatican,
Rome), Raphael executed a series of
cartoons that were then pricked for transfer.
A later example of a preparatory drawing
is to be found in the oeuvre of the
eighteenth-century painter Francesco
Solimena, whose works of sacred and
historical subjects were highly praised
inside and outside of Italy. Solimena
employed carefully planned preparatory
studies for his paintings. The Courtauld
holds a drawing relating to his painting
entitled Deborah and Barach, of which he
executed two versions for two different
patrons. The Courtauld sheet is closer
to the version of the painting now in
the Galleria Sabauda in Turin, Italy. Here
Solimena used a wide landscape format
Working more independently and outside
the ties of a specific commission, the
nineteenth-century French artist Eugène
Delacroix drew a sheet with two studies
of a female figure in 1847 and it was not
until two years later that he used one of
them, the one on the left, as a model for
the female nude in his painting Le Lever
(1849-50, Private Collection). The poses of
the standing female nude arranging her
hair are almost identical in the drawn and
painted versions. The graphite drawing
shows Delacroix studying the woman’s pose
with both her arms raised and surrounding
her head so that her hands meet on one
side in an intricate and naturally elegant
pose. Delacroix used parallel hatching to
create soft shading on the side of the figure
and to model her sensuous forms. In the
drawing, the woman’s nudity is in no way
veiled by her long voluptuous hair, as does
occur in the painting. The foreshortening
of the bent right arm appears more fully
worked out in the painting, where it is
raised at a slightly higher angle, covering
more of the woman’s face. In the painting
she is clearly shown in the act of combing
her golden locks.
Aside from their importance in the making
of paintings and sculptures, drawings also
played a vital role in the design of prints.
Ever since the diffusion of printmaking as
an art form, artists began to exploit the
power of the printed matter in showcasing
their inventions by allowing them to
reach a far wider public than previously
possible. While some painters were also
printmakers, a case in point is the German
master Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), many
others supplied professional engravers or
woodcutters – carefully selected for their
expertise – with more or less detailed
designs to be turned into prints. True
business enterprises were sometimes
formed between artist and engraver;
a noteworthy case is the collaboration
between Raphael and the engraver
Marcantonio Raimondi in Rome that
resulted in the creation of such successful
prints as the highly dramatic Massacre of
the Innocents (c. 1510-1514), engraving and
Raphael’s studies (1860-4). As a result of
their nature as a collaborative enterprise,
prints often bear the names of the artist
who conceived the original design, of the
cutter of the plate, and of the publisher
of the print. Various methods can be used
to transfer a design to a metal plate or
other surface. Often if a drawing has been
used to transfer its lines onto another
surface – be it another sheet of paper or a
plate – signs of incisions will be detectable
by pointing strong raking light onto
the surface of the paper. Pieter Bruegel
the Elder’s Kermis at Hoboken (1559), a
delicate pen and brown ink drawing, for
instance, presents signs of how the sheet
was prepared for transfer: the outlines
are incised and traces of charcoal are
detectable over the ink lines. Several of
Bruegel’s works deal with peasant life and
traditions and having a print of this subject
made allowed for his name to be linked
more closely to these themes, possibly also
attracting new potential patrons.
Finally deserving some consideration
are those drawing activities that can be
connected to the assistants and pupils who
were active in most master’s workshops.
This group includes copies after works by
the master as well as workshop materials
such as pattern book drawings (Middles
Ages) and costume prints (Renaissance
and early modern). The use and re-use
Top:
Eugène Delacroix
Sheet with two studies of a Female Nude
1847
Graphite
left:
Peter Paul Rubens
Head of the Farnese Hercules
Around 1608–10
Black chalk, heightened with white chalk, on grey
paper
ASIDE FROM THEIR
IMPORTANCE IN THE
MAKING OF PAINTINGS
AND SCULPTURES,
DRAWINGS ALSO
PLAYED A VITAL ROLE IN
THE DESIGN OF PRINTS
”
of the drawings that formed part of the
workshop material was common practice
already in the Middle Ages, where pattern
books were kept as a convenient source of
depictions of animals, plants and unusual
subjects, which may have been difficult to
draw from life. Moreover, the workshop
master’s most successful inventions were
often copied and incorporated in works of
art produced in the workshop. One such
case is the beautiful pen and ink drawing
on green prepared paper showing a seated
female saint (c. 1475-85) attributed to the
workshop of the Flemmish painter Hugo
van der Goes.
Only a small number of drawings have
survived by Van der Goes, whose
contribution to the art of drawing consisted
in developing a new technique for drawing
in chiaroscuro. This was imitated by a
number of his followers, including the
draughtsman of the Courtauld sheet.
Technical and iconographical clues prove
that this is the work of a copyist and that
the ring she is wearing on her right hand.
The ring is not shown in the Courtauld
drawing, demonstrating that this detail of
primary importance was misinterpreted
by our draughtsman. Moreover, the whole
composition follows an underlying black
chalk tracing, a clear sign that it was based
on a pre-existing model. In terms of its
function, given its exceptional state of
conservation, the Courtauld sheet could
not have been used as a workshop tool,
and is more likely to have been a collector
item.
Works on paper were in fact also executed
as independent works of art, and served
to showcase the master’s skills and
inventiveness. A wonderful early example
of such a drawing is Michelangelo’s
The Dream (c. 1533), which was probably
intended as a gift. Indeed, finished
drawings conceived to please the
collector’s eye and taste are present in all
historical periods, but it was only around
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
that the figures of the connoisseur and
collector of drawings emerged. From
the late seventeenth onwards such
autonomous drawings became more and
more common and they are sometimes
referred to as ‘collector pieces’.
Whether attempting to capture a fleeting
idea or to work out a complex narrative,
artists across periods and schools made
use of drawings for their invaluable capacity
to be flexible, readily available, and multipurpose tools. Furthermore, collectors
gradually began to appreciate drawings as
unique and intimate manifestations of the
draughtsman’s mastery and ingenuity.
a lost prototype by the master himself
served as the basis for this sheet. Both the
outlines and the white heightening are
rigid and quite formulaic - if compared to
Van der Goes’ own drawing style - while the
iconography is missing its focal point. The
figure is meant to be Saint Catherine who,
in a dream, was given a ring by the Christ
child as a symbol of their mystic marriage;
therefore the peculiar gesture of her hand
would be explained by the act of touching
Top:
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Kermis at Hoboken
1559
Pen and brown ink, contours incised for transfer
left:
Workshop of Hugo van der Goes
A Seated Female Saint
Around 1475–85
Pen, point of the brush and grey ink, heightened
with white bodycolour over preliminary black chalk
underdrawing, on green prepared paper
4: DRAWING THE LINE:
Where does drawing end and painting begin?
‘But drawing is of a vast compass.
Pedantic or superficial, calm or
compulsive, the linear fragment and the
well-rounded plastic representation have
always meant one thing: passionate
personal expression. Within the range
of media the artist has had perfect
freedom: hence the kaleidoscopic
variety of drawing. In its limitation lies
its worth: in the fragmentary, perhaps
isolated life of its forms lies its charm.’
Joseph Meder, 1919.
It is likely that our response to the ‘vast
compass’ of the art called drawing on
show in the current exhibition will largely
agree with the words of the director of
Vienna’s Albertina collection from the early
twentieth century. If asked to differentiate
between this medium and that of painting,
however, the modern audience will almost
certainly not be much concerned with
the distinctions between ‘High’ and ‘Low’
art – the traditional divide against which
background Joseph Meder’s exemplary
scholarship had been formed. As if to
reinforce this development, we have the
example of the spectacular price fetched
recently by Edvard Munch’s pastel work
The Scream, referred to in the press
alternately as painting, or as drawing.
Questioning changing attitudes to
matters of categorisation that once
placed drawings on the lower rungs of a
ladder leading from artistic aspiration to
professional achievement, this essay asks
how far historical arguments influence
today’s appreciation of the ‘kaleidoscopic
variety’ on display.
Long recognised as the vital skeleton
supporting artistic production, for many
centuries in Europe the drawing held a
discreet position in relation to the ‘fleshier’
arts of painting, sculpture and architecture.
It was not until the early nineteenth century
that works on paper began to draw full
attention for their insights into the work of
old masters. Coinciding with an increased
sophistication in reproductive print
techniques that served a wider audience of
the industrial age, the notion of a drawing
as a work of independent merit began
to take hold. The public institution of the
prints and drawings collection, combining
educational and democratic aims with
those of the connoisseur, dates from this
era.
Spontaneous or restrained; intellectual
or instinctual; harsh or soft; delicate,
ugly, intimate, gestural, fragmentary,
economical, poetic ... these are just some
of the adjectives attached to drawing in the
wealth of specialist literature. Within the
field, the technical and stylistic distinctions
are thrillingly intricate, but often far from
distinct: lines are variously firm or loose,
continuous or broken; tone is achieved
by means of textured crosshatching,
monochrome washes, bodycolour,
watercolour, and often merely by varying
densities of line. Equally, amongst the
astonishing array of tools, there is no
categorical rule which restricts their use
to drawing. The medium itself can be wet
or dry; brushes are not restricted to the
practice we call painting, and a ‘stump’
of rolled paper acts as a brush for the
smoothing of dry charcoal applications. To
a greater or lesser degree, all of these can
be applied in either mode, not to mention
the creative crossover between ‘painterly’
chiaroscuro drawings, or paintings whose
outlines could almost be cut with a knife.
Perhaps all we can say with certainty on the
relation of drawing to painting is that there
is no clear division. With this proviso clearly
stated, this essay will consider the validity
of some of the distinctions traditionally
made between the two processes, with
a focus on three main attributes that
can be identified broadly as concerning
psychological, formal and temporal
qualities. In the analysis, the interest of
each turns out to lie more in a historical
understanding than in their use as definitive
test cases; a fact which by no means
diminishes the multiple insights the offer.
• INTIMACY – the capacity to reveal
insights into personality and artistic
development, along a trajectory from
private study to public display.
• LINEAR FORM – in its contrast to
painting’s concern with surface treatment,
this deceptive category is the subject of
an enduring historical debate that is as
complex as it is intriguing.
• SPONTANEITY – integral to the character
of the sketch, increasing in significance with
the development of modern concerns with
the dynamic pace of life.
DRAWING IS OF A VAST COMPASS. PEDANTIC OR
SUPERFICIAL, CALM OR COMPULSIVE, THE LINEAR
FRAGMENT AND THE WELL-ROUNDED PLASTIC
REPRESENTATION HAVE ALWAYS MEANT ONE
THING: PASSIONATE PERSONAL EXPRESSION
”
INTIMATE MOMENTS
What has never been in dispute is drawing’s
position at the heart of the artistic process,
where it can be seen to fulfil two functions;
one for the benefit of the artist and one for
the viewer. First of these provides evidence
of practice on the path to artistic maturity,
in the form of rapid studies, records of
observation, or formal designs. The Picasso
sketch in this exhibition belongs in this
category, revealing a transitional moment
in the oeuvre of an artist whom we might
imagine made these steps almost without
trying, yet who clearly delighted in lifelong
experiment. Turning to the earlier period,
Dürer’s ambitious drawing of the Wise
Virgin, with the tentative anatomical studies
of his own leg on the verso, offers similar
insights, as do the Leonardo studies of
Mary Magdalene, where he is seen to be
developing a new angle on the traditional
narrative. Just as important for today’s
audience, however, is the second function
of these works; namely the glimpse that
they afford us into the workings of a mind
operating more than five hundred years
ago. Such thrilling encounters with the
artist’s ‘hand’ explain much of the appeal of
these works, regarded as a direct conduit
to the hidden personality behind the more
public creations.
These qualities might once have been
employed as clear dividers between the
private nature of drawing and the public
face of a finished painting. However,
there are also plenty of highly finished
works unconnected to any known painting
or sculpture, such as is the case with
Pinturicchio’s consummately graceful
angel, to name but one example conceived
as a deliberate promotional exercise in
personal style. The modernising shift in
the function of drawing we witness here
has been described as a transformation
from being an instrument of form to one
of temperament. It could also be seen
as a new dialogue between making and
viewing. Not only are whole exhibitions
dedicated to these preparatory fragments
today, but an extension of this is that
individual drawings themselves can
become so familiar through reproduction
that we hardly question their original
ephemerality. In this connection, Meder
comments on the popular status of the
famous Dürer drawing of ‘hands in prayer’,
prized in modern times as evidence of a
deeply devotional personality, but for the
artist himself purely representing a detail
study for his Heller Altarpiece.
THE LIMITS OF FORM
The origins of the most enduring paradigm
in the debate on the comparative merits
of painting and drawing also date from the
Renaissance, when issues surrounding the
professional status of the artist coincided
with a revival of the ancient Humanist
struggles for supremacy between the arts
and philosophy. As a subdivision of this
contest, Renaissance theorists such as
Vasari and Frederico Zuccaro argued for
the artistic root of form – or ‘disegno’ – as
proceeding directly from the intellect.
‘Colorito’, by contrast, was considered a
material element appealing to the senses.
It is important to note that these divisions
were applied principally within the context
of the painting, as was the case in midseventeenth century Paris when members
of the academy discussed the relative
merits of Poussin’s mastery of line or the
primacy of colour in Rubens.
In his specific focus on drawing as the
pinnacle of Classical Greek art, the
eighteenth-century German art historian
Johann Winckelmann set an even stricter
moral tone that equated formal restraint
with the ideal of beauty: ‘But, among
the Greeks, the art of drawing resembles
a river whose waters flow in numerous
windings through a fertile vale, and fill its
channel, yet do not overflow’. His view of
later Antiquity as a period of descent into
decadence and decay was to have lasting
influence, and it may come as no surprise
that there was an attendant tendency to
Image:
Albrecht Dürer
Wise Virgin
1493
Pen and ink
This drawing will not be included in The Courtauld
exhibition but will be part of The Frick exhibition
October 2, 2012, until January 27, 2013
DRAWING THE LINE
Written by Niccola Shearman
other humanities
equate line with masculinity and colour with
femininity. When during the Napoleonic
occupation the German Romantics made
the same associations of line with intellect
over the sensual qualities of the more lavish
oil painting, they appealed successfully to
nationalist sensibilities in promoting the
rapid rise of ‘Papierkultur’. And Goethe,
although a serious colour theorist, yet
made the same distinction between sense
impression and soul: ‘The pleasure in
colour is experienced by the organ of the
eye, which communicates it to the rest of
the person. The pleasure in form lies in the
person’s higher nature and the inner person
communicates this to the eye’.
If thus far the argument is largely a
conceptual one, and as such a product
of a typical rationalisation process, do
these distinctions carry more material
weight when applied by practising artists?
Probably not in the case of the German
sculptor and prolific print-maker Max
Klinger, whose polemic on Painting and
Drawing (1891) was predicated on the need
to retain the hard-won status of drawing.
In contrast to the real-life associations
of colour, he claimed, the proliferation
of linear art in print-making had helped
to reveal both the liberating and the
often unsettling effects of drawing, which
conveyed a deeper sense of ‘the awfulness
of existence’. Key to this was the outline,
isolating forms in the service of an idea,
and being more suited to the developing
taste for fantasy-narratives and social
critique. Again the argument privileges
the imagination, which is exercised by the
need to fill in details which in colour might
be overwhelming. Thus Klinger praises
the ‘passionate economy’ of Goya, for
whom, ‘The almost empty background is
the whole world’. Comparing the drawing
to poetry and painting to the novel in this
respect, he appropriated the argument
of the Enlightenment thinker G E Lessing,
and added to a growing code of correct
materials which was to become a central
tenet of modernist theory until the middle
of the twentieth century.
WHERE LINE MEETS COLOUR
Written for an amateur audience in
the arts & crafts spirit of equality, John
Ruskin’s Elements of Drawing of 1857
advocates copious practice with a ‘pointed
instrument’ before embarking on the more
difficult handling of colour. Championing
the art of Turner here as in his major work
On Modern Painters, Ruskin sets out
to contradict an opinion that held the
master could not draw, demonstrating the
importance of line ‘even to a painter whose
chief value and skill seemed, in his finished
works, to consist in losing it’. While outline
may be artificial in nature, he tells us, it is
an essential basis for a work of art - as we
might agree in relation to Turner’s view of
Colchester, itself a preparatory work for a
series of line engravings.
Ruskin’s eloquent description of
watercolour as the medium of ‘the quiet
boundary’ highlights its position on the
border between drawing and painting.
According to the expert Joseph Meder, the
point at which they merge comes ‘when a
subject is developed beyond the isolated
elements of line and empty space until the
preparation is eliminated and the support
fully covered, revealing no visible edges’.
In this context, Cezanne’s still life presents
us with a perfect example of the interaction
of ‘edge’ and surface covering, where the
generous preparatory lines both isolate
individual volumes of fruit, bottle and chairback and themselves are augmented by
radiating areas of white space. The colour
is at once animated by these contours and
in its sensuous spread appears to break
their bounds.
Despite a new fluidity, the binary division
of linear and painterly had nonetheless
developed by the early twentieth
century into one of five major reference
points of Heinrich Wölfflin’s influential
Principles of Art History (1913). With a
thesis of limits and limitlessness, the
argument in this history of style attaches
to all forms of visual art, each of which
follows a developmental path from linear
characteristics of the early Renaissance
to the painterly quality of the age of
Rembrandt. While Wölfflin too is attracted
by definitions according to soul and senses,
he avoids presenting the transition as a
matter of ‘descent’, and instead sees the
development as ‘a decisive readjustment
of the eye’, from seeing in lines to seeing
in masses.
Wölfflin’s categorisation according to the
senses of touch and of sight, in which he
applies a tactile value to the early period,
and an optical one to the later, is typical
of his approach to boundaries that can be
both intricately defined and yet far from
fixed. Thus in the style of Dürer he too
observes the outlining function of a line
that isolates objects one from another.
In the case of the Wise Virgin, this might
apply to the continuous contour of the
face, the individually delineated strands of
hair or even the clear edges of the folds
of cloth, whereby ‘the eye is led along the
boundaries and induced to feel along the
edges’. With the Baroque age, Wölfflin
suggests that a new mode takes over;
one which, in place of the continuous
line, employs individual strokes to amass
the visual qualities of surface, conveying
movement and limitlessness where the
Renaissance was concerned with the fixing
of solid forms. The historian does not deny
the obvious tactile quality of shimmering
silk or soft flesh in Rembrandt. Instead, this
tactility is transferred from the contour of
things to their interior surfaces. The Rubens
portrait of his wife Helena Fourment makes
for a fine example in this context, all the
more so for the visual reference to the
sense of touch suggested by the fingers
of the sitter toying with veil and book. The
fact that this image is held to double both
as a personal likeness and as a metaphor
for the ideal figure of Pictura positions it
somewhere between intimate study and
a finished work of art, thus combining
for our purposes evidence both of the
aspirational context of drawing and the
achievement traditionally represented by
the oil painting.
SPONTANEITY
If we were to single out one quality that
applies consistently more to the graphic
medium than to paint, then the temporal
element associated with the sketch would
seem to offer safe ground. Admittedly,
even here we have the case of the oil
sketch that embodies similar aspects of
speed and spontaneity – not to mention
the common misconceptions routinely
applied to Impressionist paint techniques.
Nonetheless, the drawing’s innate
suitability to swift representation gave it
an advantage in responding to a modern
mode of life as a dynamic experience in
contrast to the fixed certainties of the
past. Even Gainsborough, who regarded
drawing as a relief from the pressures of
portrait painting, was praised in his own
time precisely for the speed and ease with
which he appeared to work with the pencil,
whereas this same virtue would be seen as
a failing in the laborious art of oils. By the
time we come to Edgar Degas, the fluid
employment of the pastel is fundamental
to the articulation of movement, whether
applied in scenes from the dance or, as
in our drawing, in the apparent stillness
of a shop, where the pivotal twist of the
woman’s body contains all the animation
necessary for a moment in time.
By contrast, actual speed of execution is
often an attribute imposed by the viewer. In
the case of van Gogh, the accounts of his
trips into the fields around Arles suggest
an impulsive urge to record the rapid onset
of spring. However, the addition to the
preliminary plein-air sketch of finer detail
in the decorative Japanese style indicates
that the artist invested considerable time
back in the studio in order to develop the
work into a finished picture. Meanwhile,
van Gogh’s own mastery of movement
is employed with elegant restraint in the
graphic medium, where the gentle stirrings
in earth and air are conveyed by sparse
means of contrast between the empty
stretches of white paper bisected by calm
horizontals, and brisk directional elements
that enliven the new growth amidst the
ploughed field and the waving branches in
bud.
In conclusion, we might take the case of
Henri Matisse as an example of an artist
whose fluent negotiation of the borders
between painting and drawing serves
both to highlight and, importantly, to
complicate, many of the features isolated in
this essay. If his Notes of a Painter of 1908
reveal his primary devotion to colour, this
is by no means contradicted by utterances
made thirty years later, to the effect that,
‘My line drawing is the purest and most
direct translation of my emotion’. On the
contrary, the Notes of a Painter on Drawing
(1939) suggest that even these sparest
of works, apparently embodying all the
freedom and spontaneity associated with
drawing, cannot definitively be separated
from the art of painting. For not only
does he refer to the modelling of black
line on white paper in language that
evokes the act of painting, where there
are relationships but no edges, but also
that of drawing, where the white paper
retains its operative role. Moreover, he
reveals how far these have been worked
up in a series of careful charcoal studies
which he compares to the ‘limbering up’
exercises of a dancer preparing for public
expression. The Courtauld drawing dates
from a period where Matisse was limbering
up to the flowing arabesques that were to
become the signature of the late drawings,
and in this respect, it reinforces the artist’s
own insights into the deceptive nature of
drawing’s much- vaunted spontaneity.
This exhibition leaves us with little doubt
that those same virtues singled out by
Joseph Meder continue to influence
the appeal of drawings as fragments of
‘passionate personal expression’, whose
charm lies so often in their limits. However,
in the light of the long struggle for preeminence surveyed here, Matisse gives us
the clearest indication that in the mind of
the artist there are no divisions. Instead, the
tension between line as a limit of space,
and colour as surface quantity, is itself an
inseparable part of the creative process:
‘On a painted surface I render space to
the sense of sight: I make of it a colour
limited by a drawing. When I use paint, I
have a feeling of quantity ... and I modify its
contour in order to determine my feeling
clearly in a definitive way. (Let’s call the first
action ‘to paint’ and the second ‘to draw’.)
In my case, to paint and to draw are one’.
Left:
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Dawn after the Wreck
Around 1841
Watercolour, bodycolour, and touches of red
chalk with some rubbing out and scraping
right:
Henri Matisse
Seated Woman
1919
Graphite
5: MAKING PAPER
WORKS ON PAPER
Until around 1500, drawings served largely
as preparatory sketches or patterns for
the creation of other artworks in the
workshop rather than as objects collected
for their aesthetic value. They were rarely
commented on by writers of the period,
and few were dated, signed or even
attributed to a specific draughtsman.
Michelangelo’s Battle of Cascina cartoon
(c.1505, now lost) is one of the earliest
recorded examples of a drawing being
admired by the public. It attracted so much
attention that the Florentine goldsmith
and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571)
described it as ‘a drawing-academy for the
whole world’. This marked an important
moment in the transformation of drawing
as both a means and an end to artistic
revelation.
THE ORIGINS OF PAPER IN ITALY
Paper has been manufactured in Italy
since around 1270, although it had been
imported into Europe several centuries
before. As early as 1276 paper mills were
constructed in Fabriano, a small town
in central Italy, where conditions were
favourable due to plentiful water, windmills
which were converted to paper mills and
an abundant supply of raw materials from
the local textile industry. By 1330 Fabriano
was the leading European centre of the
paper industry. Nevertheless, it was many
years before paper was widely used. For
a long time paper was considered inferior
to the animal skin parchment used for
manuscripts, and too fragile for legal
documents. Due to low manufacturing
output throughout the fifteenth century,
paper in Europe remained expensive and
difficult for draughtsmen to obtain. Most
surviving drawings from this period were
preserved because of their function in
the workshop or for formal, contractual
purposes.
MAKING PAPER
Written by Amanda Saroff with thanks to
Stephanie Buck and Katharine Lockett
other humanities as well as technology
based arts.
Images of Fabriano mould and paper © Museo della
Carta e della Filigrana, Fabriano, Italy.
A Fabriano paper mould with examples of wire
watermark designs.
The invention of the moveable-type
printing press in Germany around 1450
and its introduction to other parts of
Europe radically changed how paper was
used. The printing press facilitated swift
communication to a newly emergent,
literate middle class that could not
otherwise afford manuscripts. A printed
edition of some 250 books could be
produced more quickly, accurately and
cheaply than a single copy of the same
text handwritten on parchment. As the
demand for prints after religious subjects
and famous paintings increased, so too did
the demand for paper. Paper gradually rose
in quality and decreased in price. Fifteenthcentury, good quality rag paper cost only
one sixth the price of parchment, but it was
still a significant expense for an artist.
The gradual increase in the availability
of paper had an enormous impact on
the drawing practices of Renaissance
draughtsmen. The model book stock of
motifs was complemented by sheets of
rapidly recorded observations or variously
worked out solutions to problems of form.
Often artists used the same sheet for
multiple sketches.
MAKING PAPER
The manufacture of paper was a highly
skilled, specialised profession. Until around
1850, the majority of paper was made
from rags. The finest, whitest paper was
produced from linen, lesser quality paper
from cotton, hemp, wool or silk. Rags were
carefully sorted according to fibre type,
colour, cleanliness and condition. Once
separated, the rags were cut up, cleaned,
fermented and beaten to break the cloth
down into fibres called stuff. These fibres
were then mixed with water in a vat to form
paper pulp. Paper sheets were formed by
dipping a mould and deckle into the
vat of pulp.
The mould consisted of a rectangular frame
with a lattice-like screen of closely laid
copper wires stretched horizontally, held
together by evenly spaced vertical chain
wires. These laid and chain wires left an
imprint on the paper that gave the surface
a ribbed appearance when held to the
light, hence the name laid paper.
The rectangular frame placed underneath
the mould, called the deckle, kept the pulp
on the mould as it was dipped into the vat.
The mould and deckle were moved back
and forth in the vat, before being lifted
out and shaken so that pulp was evenly
IT WAS MANY YEARS BEFORE PAPER WAS
WIDELY USED. FOR A LONG TIME PAPER WAS
CONSIDERED INFERIOR TO THE ANIMAL SKIN
PARCHMENT USED FOR MANUSCRIPTS,
AND TOO FRAGILE FOR LEGAL DOCUMENTS
”
distributed and the excess water could
drain through the wires.
The deckle was removed from the mould
and the wet paper rapidly placed between
two pieces of felt. After a number of sheets
had been assembled, the pile was placed
under a hand press to further squeeze
out excess water. After a second pressing
without felt, the sheets were hung over
An example of a Fabriano ladder watermark c.1525
on laid paper.
trademark. Watermarks provide important
clues to art historians about where and
when, and sometimes by whom, paper was
made.
Jost Amman woodcut of paper being made by hand
c.1568.
ropes in ventilated drying lofts. Once dry,
the paper was coated with gelatin; this
process was known as sizing.
Paper, as we know it today, is mostly
produced from bleached wood pulp and
is a cheap, mass produced material. Rag
paper, made from cotton and linen, is
still produced but is expensive and tends
to be used mostly by artists or specialist
publishers.
WATERMARKS
When paper is held up to the light, often
a monogram or an image is faintly visible.
Made from wire, these designs are sewn
into the wire lattice of the mould. As the
pulp settles, it is thinner in the areas of the
design thus allowing more light to pass
through and the writing or image to be
seen. This is called a watermark and was
used by manufacturers as a form of
CARING FOR PAPER
Works on paper are fragile. Light causes
oxidation of paper and unrestricted
exposure will lead to discolouration
and eventual damage. This can be seen
particularly in poor quality wood pulp
paper, such as newspaper. If left in the
sun for as little as a day, it will become
deeply discoloured. UV rays are particularly
insidious and are therefore eliminated from
the gallery environment. Heat and humidity
also precipitate chemical reactions that
endanger paper, as does poor mounting,
backing or framing.
Curators and conservators take great
care to maintain conservation standards
with temperature and humidity controlled
exhibition spaces, low light levels and
good quality mounting and framing. They
balance the preservation of these precious
works of art for posterity with their display
for public study and delight.
Katharine Lockett from The Courtauld Gallery cleans
and prepares a print for an exhibition.
6: EXPRESSIVE ARTS
It was in expressive
arts, and we were playing
a game. I had to close
my eyes and wait for
something. But then
everybody hid, around
the room. So I didn’t
know what was happening,
‘cause the teacher played
a trick on me.
It’s not really that big
a moment, but I just
thought it’d be good in
a picture. So like the
whole room surrounding
me, and I’m right in the
middle.
The words of the text accompanying
the drawing were spoken by a Year 7
school student. I was on a residency for
Whitechapel Gallery at Raine’s Foundation
School in London, in 2007. I had been
commissioned to create a work of art that
responded in some way to the school
environment. My practice draws on
memory, re-enactment, and narrative —
often through depicting solitary figures
in interior spaces. For School Interiors, I
asked students from two classes I had been
working with — Year 7 and Year 10 — to tell
me a memorable incident that had taken
place in the school, and to take me to the
location.
I took fourteen students individually
out of the classroom, photographed
them remembering the incident, and
recorded their words without rehearsal
on a Dictaphone. There was an intimacy
created: the spaces they took me to were
deserted, where normally there would
be the clamour of break, or lessons. It
was a rare opportunity to be alone with a
student in a school, and for them to share a
personal memory with me. This drawing for
‘Expressive Arts’ (one of a series of fourteen
Indian ink drawings) was created from the
photographs I took, and the atmosphere of
the story the student told.
Image:
Matthew Krishanu
Expressive Arts
2007
Indian ink on paper
EXPRESSIVE ARTS
Written by Matthew Krishanu
Art and Design
The photographs document the school
environment in detail, and show the precise
identities of the students. The drawings
are a transformation — they represent the
students in the act of remembering; the
scenes lose their substance and colour
(evoking old black and white photographs),
blurring like memories.
Indian ink is fluid — it brushes across the
paper in light washes, but also has the
potential to be deep black. It can be both
solid and ethereal. In ‘Expressive Arts’ the
darkest form is the boy — the scene around
him is in shades of grey and white, except
for the darkest shadows in the curtains
and ceiling, and the boy’s reflection on the
polished gymnasium floor, which are in
black.
To create the greatest contrast between
the rich blacks of Indian ink and the bright
white of the ground, I chose a smooth (hot
pressed), relatively lightweight (135 gsm)
bleached cartridge paper. This weight
of paper can’t take much fluid before it
starts to ruckle, or even tear. I kept the
brushstrokes light in application.
Indian ink is indelible — unlike watercolour
or gouache which one can ‘lift’ off once
it dries (the paint dissolves and runs in
water). I chose not to use bodycolour
(white gouache) to make corrections, so
the drawing had to be right first time.
When working from photographs I find
this pressure useful — it keeps the works
fresh, rather than over-laboured. The final
drawing was my third attempt — in the first
two a brush mark had gone astray, and I
needed to begin again.
I worked on A3 paper. Unlike when I work
on canvas, I was able to forget the edges of
the page. The actual drawing takes up less
than half the space of the A3 sheet — it
floats on the paper, its edges blurring into
the white of the page. The impression is
similar to the television and film convention
of ‘memory’ or ‘dream’ sequences where
the four corners of the screen dissolve to a
blurred oval, as if we were seeing through
the lens of the person remembering.
The image is not photographically accurate
— my hand and eye have changed the
perspective of the scene. The sloping
wall from the top left of the page is at a
heightened angle, exaggerating the space
in the room, and giving a slight sense of
vertigo to the drawing.
The unreality of the room is emphasized
by the boy’s placement. He seems to
hover in space, perhaps a couple feet off
the ground. There’s something toy-like
about him. In relation to the plane of the
floor, the boy seems to float. This gives the
impression that he is standing on water,
partly evoked by the liquid application of
the ink (which is simply dark water). The
sense of his remove or detachment from
the scene reminds me of certain dreams
where my surroundings appear like an
apparition, just beyond my touch.
The room is fluid, the boy more solid, and
the whole image is filled with light. Light
floods through the windows, creating dark
shadows in the curtains and on the bars of
the gym apparatus, and light bounces off
the floor. While there is a diagonal shadow
cast on the wall behind the boy, what we
see on the floor is a reflection (of the boy
and the apparatus), not a shadow. The
reflection of the boy is as dark as his black
suit.
He stands stiffly, perhaps ill at ease, and
looks exposed in the vast-seeming hall. We
get a sense of his character from his pose
— he is young, not tall, with short cropped
hair, and has a serious demeanour. He is
a boy in formal uniform, in an institutional
setting, yet he is remembering a personal
scene. The drawing is about representing
something of his interior world, rather than
the outward appearance of the school
environment and a student in school
uniform.
I placed the boy’s head about half way up
from the bottom of the floor to the top
of the ceiling. The expanse of floor adds
interest to the composition: the drawing
becomes about space — the plane of the
floor around him, and the light and air
surrounding him. However, the floor isn’t an
inviting surface to walk across — he seems
frozen still.
Inessential details are lost: the lines painted
on the gym floor, the fire exit sign, the
strip-lights above (I wanted the scene to
be lit only by day light, entering from the
top left — an Old Master convention). We
know what gym apparatus looks like, so we
know there are ropes, hinges, bars — we
fill these in ourselves. The mattress-like
folded structure on wheels behind the boy
provides a compositional device, anchoring
the figure in the room from the right-hand
side.
The roof slopes upwards from the room’s
far corner, then straightens to a horizontal
at the top right of the picture (where it
meets a grid-like window pane). At first
this detail of the architecture might not
be noticed, instead giving the sense of
an unreal perspective, as if the corner
were further from the boy than it actually
is. The roof looks like old wood beams
— neither quite parallel nor straight. The
school gym becomes one of memory and
imagination, rather than the new-build of
my photographs.
The door at the back is a counterpoint to
the boy. It was made of dark wood, but I
bleached it out, so that it would not distract
attention from the figure. In our vision,
things in the distance appear lighter, less
focused. The light grey rectangle is just
enough to suggest the door’s presence,
without unbalancing the picture.
The outside is blank. We know there is a
view beyond the windows — perhaps trees,
bushes, buildings, sky — but the drawing
only shows the white of the light, not the
scene beyond.
The boy’s black uniform is punctuated
by five slits of white: at the bottom of his
buttoned jacket, on his cuffs and collar,
the light reflecting off his shoe, and a thin
band of light at the sole of his shoe, before
his reflection on the floor begins. Each of
these patches of white are where I left the
paper exposed. If they had been inked
over, the small standing figure would have
lost its form — it would have flattened to a
silhouette.
In his words, the boy states that he was
‘right in the middle’ of the gym. When I
took the photos, that’s where he stood, but
when it came to composing the drawing, I
placed him to the right, for an asymmetric
composition. His words give a sense of
the space around him, including the space
where the viewer is — we are in the gym
with him. In the game of hide and seek that
the teacher had tricked him into playing,
we could be one of the children hiding
around the boy, waiting for him to open
his eyes. However, the impression is one of
emptiness — the people really have gone.
He is alone, and that’s how he remembered
the scene.
The drawing floats on the paper as the boy
does in the room. The white light in the
drawing extends into the white light of the
page. If the white in the image had been
made with paint (for example gouache),
it would be differentiated from the white
paper. The white of a page is beautiful,
unlike the machine-bleached white of a
pre-primed canvas. With canvas, painters
talk of the need to ‘kill the white’ — to put
down a layer of paint all over the surface
before one can proceed. On paper, the
surface needs to ‘breathe’. The white would
be suffocated if too much ink were applied.
Norman Bryson, in Vision and Painting,
writes of the difference between ‘deictic’
(from the Greek deikonei, to show) and
‘erasive’ media . Here the ink is deictic
— it shows the hand of the painter; as in
Chinese calligraphy, there is a performative
element. The reflections are clearly whole
brush strokes, and one can read the width
of the brush used from the thin lines of the
bars. If the artist’s hand falters, the record
is apparent. An erasive medium — like oil
paint — allows the painter to cover his or
her tracks, successive layers concealing the
layers beneath.
If I had chosen to make an oil painting from
the photographs, it would be a different
piece — it would memorialize the room
itself, representing the solid space and
colours of a tactile environment, rather
than the black and white blurring of a room
remembered. On canvas, the edges are
more determined: the convention is to fill
the picture all the way to its edges. If an
oil painting were left blank at the sides,
it might look unfinished or contrived. In
a drawing far more than a painting, we
accept the partial.
THE IMPRESSION IS ONE
OF EMPTINESS — THE
PEOPLE REALLY HAVE
GONE. HE IS ALONE,
AND THAT’S HOW HE
REMEMBERED THE
SCENE
”
The black ink of the text relates visually to
the ink of the drawing. The boy’s words
are printed in Courier font (to imitate a
typewriter) on the same cartridge paper as
the drawing. If I were to do the piece again,
I would typewrite the text. The physical
marks of the typewritten word would have
been a good complement to the stroke /
caress of brushed ink. With ink-jet printing
— unless the printer is damaged — there
is no variation in the value of the black ink:
all the letters are precise, repeated, and of
the same blackness. A typewriter is closer
to the hand, each letter an extension of the
finger that punches the key. The qualities
of blackness and of impact vary, according
to how hard the key is punched, and to the
individual characteristics of the machine —
each letter will be fractionally different.
The drawings and accompanying texts
were first exhibited at Whitechapel Gallery
without frames, lightly attached to a white
wall. For Raine’s Foundation the drawings
were placed in picture mounts and frames
— a necessary protective for hanging them
in the school. There was a rawness to the
loose presentation of the drawings and
texts placed directly on the wall, which
I preferred to the framed and mounted
display. It allowed viewers to draw close to
the image, without the glass intervening.
Although I have a lot to say about the
drawing now, many of the complex
decisions were made intuitively. At the
time I was simply focused on completing
it quickly, and in one sitting (I find it much
easier to achieve a unity of tone and
composition in one go, rather than over
a series of sessions). For me, speed of
execution is important to allow the medium
to speak for itself — for the ink to run
and spill and build in layers — rather than
trying slowly and methodically to control
it. It also allows chance to enter. How an
individual brush stroke will look, or at what
scale a subject is represented — these
are elements I do not preconceive, and
yet all contribute to the atmosphere and
individuality of the piece. From start to
finish, the process of drawing is about
discovering what my mind’s eye sees in a
given scene — I am only vaguely aware
of what I want to achieve when I begin
drawing a picture. What excites me about
creating art works is that the success of a
given piece can’t be pre-formulated: for
the results to have any lasting resonance
requires a degree of spontaneity.
ARABESQUE
A term used in European art to describe
a particular kind of decorative motif
comprising a flowering or volute
composition.
BODYCOLOUR
A type of paint consisting of pigment,
a binding agent (usually gum arabic)
and sometimes an added inert material.
Designed to be used for an opaque
method. Often called gouache, this
method can also be referred to as opaque
watercolour.
CHIAROSCURO
An Italian term which literally means ‘lightdark’. In paintings the description refers to
clear tonal contrasts which are often used
to suggest the volume and modelling of
the subjects depicted
COLORITO
A term usually applied to 16th-century
Italian paintings in which colour is
employed in a dominant manner, for
sensual expressive purposes and as an
important compositional element.
CROSS HATCHING
An artistic technique used to create tonal
or shading effects by drawing (or painting
or scribing) closely spaced parallel lines.
DISEGNO
From the Italian word for drawing or
design, carries a more complex meaning in
art, involving both the ability to make the
drawing and the intellectual capacity to
invent the design.
ECOLE DES BEAUX ARTS
A famous French art school located in
Paris. The school has a history spanning
more than 350 years, training many of the
great artists in Europe. Beaux Arts style
was modelled on classical “antiquities,”
preserving these idealized forms and
passing the style on to future generations.
over it. Traditionally a ground would
have been gesso for a panel piece or an
undercoat of paint on a canvas.
NON-FINITO
An description of a painting, drawing or
sculpture literally meaning that the work
is unfinished. Non-finito art works appear
unfinished because the artist choses
to it leave it so. This term is used as a
counterpoint to finito
PARAGONE
A debate from the Italian Renaissance
in which one form of art, for example
architecture, sculpture or painting, is
championed as superior to all others.
PICTURA
A 16th Century Italian term, specifically a
Humanist term, defining the art and the
style of a painting or drawing.
PLEIN-AIR
Plein Air is the French for open air. The
term is used to describe the practice
of artists painting or drawing before a
landscape or other chosen subject out of
doors, rather than in a studio or workshop.
SFUMATO
Sfumato is the ‘smoky’ quality which blurs
contours so that figures emerge from a
dark background by means of gradual tonal
modulations without any harsh outlines.
STUMPING
A stump is a cylindrical drawing tool,
usually made of soft paper that is tightly
wound into a stick and sanded to a point at
both ends. It is used by artists to smudge
or blend marks made with charcoal, Conté
crayon, pencil or other drawing media. By
its use, gradations and half tones can be
produced.
FINITO
An Italian term used to describe a highly
finished drawing, sculpture or painting.
The term is the counterpoint to non-finito
SUPPORT
The support of a drawing or a painting is
the object or material on which the work
has been executed. Paintings and drawings
have been produced on a number of
different supports, including wooden
panels, paper, canvas and copper. Different
supports have to be prepared in different
ways before the image can be applied.
GROUND
The ground is a layer used to prepare a
support for a painting or drawing; its colour
and tone can affect the chromatic and tonal
values of the paint or wash layers applied
TOOTH
The surface feel of paper is its tooth. The
more tooth a paper has the rougher it
feels to the touch. Some inks may adhere
poorly to papers that are extremely smooth
with very little tooth. Tooth also refers to a
slightly rough finish that takes ink well. It is
a preferred surface texture for charcoal and
pastel art.
NOTED HISTORIANS AND WRITERS
MENTIONED HEREIN
CENNINO CENNINI
c.1370 - c.1440
Italian painter and writer of The Craftsman’s
Handbook, a seminal work in its time.
BENEDETTO VARCHI
1502 - 1565
Italian humanist, historian and poet
GIORGIO VASARI
1511 - 1574
An italian painter, writer and historian most
noted for his “Lives of the […] Artist” first
published in 1550
HEINRICH WÖLFFLIN
1864 - 1945
Swiss art critic whose classifying principles
were influential in the development of
formal anaylsis of art
ROGER FRY
1866 - 1934
English artist and art critic and a founder of
The Courtauld Institute of Art
HENRI MATISSE
1869 - 1954 Painter and writer as well as sculptur,
draughtsman and printmaker. Perhaps
best known as a fauve his influence can be
noted across the 20th Century
MARION BLACKETT MILNER
1900 - 1998
A British author and psychoanalyst
JACQUES DERRIDA
1930 - 2004
French philosopgher, noted for the theory
of deconstruction
DEANNA PETHERBRIDGE
1939 - An artist, writer and curator primarily
concerned with drawing
NORMAN BRYSON
1940 A Scottish Art historian of French
eighteenth-century painting and Harvard
University professor
8: REGARDE!:
QUELLES FEMMES?
De la femme idéalisée dans le portrait
d'histoire, à la femme du quotidien faisant
sa toilette, les esquisses des maîtres
en France nous donnent un intéressant
aperçu d'une certaine société et de ses
restrictions, bousculées au fil du temps. Les
changements sont notables, et nous font
voir en filigrane les dessous de l'Histoire.
Pourtant, le sujet de représentation
principal, la femme, est souvent la grande
absente du tableau, et la place de celles-ci
reste effacée dans un monde largement
masculin.
Commençons notre exploration par
Watteau. Dans le Satyr Pouring Wine
de 1717, le corps nu est prétexte à la
représentation d'une scène à caractère
mythologique. À cette époque en effet, les
seules représentations du corps humain nu
autorisées étaient celles le plaçant dans un
contexte soit d’une scène d'histoire, soit
d’une scène mythologique ou religieuse.
Comme on peut d'ailleurs le voir
représenté dans l'aquarelle de Natoire The
Life Class at the Royal Academy of Painting
and Sculpture de 1746, tous les artistes
de l'Académie se devaient d'apprendre à
représenter le nu en copiant les anciens
ou lors de séances avec modèles vivants.
Cependant, la représentation du nu n’est
pas anodine dans l’art, et a toujours été
sujet à controverse. En effet, le nu doit
porter des valeurs morales et esthétiques
masquant le côté érotique du corps,
afin d’être accepté par une société qui
condamne fermement la pornographie.
Alors que les artistes commencent à
représenter des nus qui s’éloignent de plus
en plus des représentations inscrites dans
un cadre formel, tel La Toilette de Manet
de 1860, le Salon renforce la censure, et
les artistes qui s’en voient refuser l’accès
sont obligés de trouver une alternative: ils
créent et exposent leurs œuvres au Salon
des Refusés.
Au début de la Troisième République, avec
le démantèlement du bureau de la censure
du Salon en 1880 facilitant la circulation
d’images de nus, la représentation de la
nudité dans le contexte du quotidien se
généralise. Alors que la femme alanguie
dans Study for « La Grande Odalisque
» de Ingres de 1814 se justifie dans
un imaginaire orientalisant, la Female
Nude de Seurat de 1879-81 ou la Seated
Woman de Matisse de 1919 ne font plus
semblant de s’inscrire dans un contexte
autre que celui de leur quotidien, et elles
sont là, simplement, offertes au regard du
spectateur.
Mais quelle est la place de la femme dans
ce monde où artistes, commanditaires
et spectateurs sont en immense majorité
des hommes? À la fin du XIXème siècle,
ce sont en très grande partie les femmes
qui posent sous l’œil attentif des hommes.
Bien qu’elles deviennent le centre
d’attention, trop peu de témoignages
de leur expérience en tant que modèle
perdurent, et aujourd’hui, nous nous
souvenons seulement de ceux qui les ont
immortalisées en de gracieuses évocations.
Cette absence de reconnaissance sociale,
qui est même légiféré dans la société
française de cette époque, cache pourtant
trop souvent un traitement dur, parfois
cruel, réservé aux modèles. Grâce à Alice
Michel et son article intitulé ‘Degas et son
Modèle’ publié en 1919 dans le Mercure de
France, on voit comment Pauline, modèle
du peintre, subit chaque jours la pénibilité
des poses imposées par l’artiste, souffre
du froid, de la saleté de l’atelier, et de
l’attitude parfois brutale de Degas à son
égard. Le récit de cette femme nous offre
un nouveau regard sur les représentations
de nus. Dans Sheet with two Studies of
a Female Nude de Delacroix, le modèle
n’a t’elle pas pris froid ? N’a t’elle pas
souffert de crampes terribles ? À quoi
pense le modèle de Study for « La Grande
Odalisque » de Ingres de 1814? Redoutet-elle de possibles violences que le peintre
pourrait commettre sur elle si elle ne
parvenait pas à tenir la pose suffisamment
longtemps?
La femme, objet de contemplation de
l’homme artiste, commanditaire ou simple
spectateur reste donc dans l’histoire
comme un objet silencieux, gracieusement
offert aux regards. Les contemplerionsnous de la même manière si nous pouvions
entendre ce que ces femmes ont à nous
dire ?
REGARDE! Quelles femmes?
Written by Marie Sautin.
CURRICULUM LINKS: KS3&KS4+
MFL French, Art History and other
Humanities.
LA FEMALE NUDE DE SEURAT DE 1879-81 NE
FAIT PLUS SEMBLANT DE S’INSCRIRE DANS
UN CONTEXTE AUTRE QUE CELUI DE SON
QUOTIDIEN, ET ELLES EST LÀ, SIMPLEMENT,
OFFERTE AU REGARD DU SPECTATEUR
”
ACTIVITÉS
LE CORPS ET LA ROUTINE JOURNALIÈRE
KS3
En regardant les dessins de nus, décrivez
les différentes parties du corps. Ces descriptions peuvent devenir une occasion
d’utiliser des comparatifs et des superlatifs,
soit en comparants les différents tableaux
entre eux, soit en les comparants avec son
propre corps. De plus, pour les dessins
représentants la toilette, l’observation et
la description peuvent devenir un prétexte
pour parler de la routine journalière aussi
bien pour « je » ou « elle/il », que pour
parler au passé et au présent. Nos corps
et nos habitudes ont-elles changées au fil
des siècles ? Les élèves les plus téméraires pourront même tenter de décrire
à l’imparfait et à la troisième personne
du singulier la routine quotidienne d’un
modèle de tel ou tel peintre !
LA FEMME DANS L’HISTOIRE EN FRANCE
KS4 ET KS5
En observant les esquisses de femmes nues
au fil des siècles dans cette exposition, on
observe bien sûr des changements dans le
traitement du corps, soit s’inscrivant dans
le moule conformiste de la représentation du nu dans la peinture d’histoire ou
mythologique, soit dans la sphère privée
ou le simple regard se transforme parfois
en celui de voyeur. Cependant, bien que le
monde représenté soit celui de la femme,
cette dernière n’est que peu présente dans
ce monde d’artistes et commanditaires
masculins. Quelle est la position sociale de
la femme au sein du monde de l’art, tant
dans la représentation que dans la critique
ou encore la production ? Et plus généralement, quel est le rôle qu’occupe la femme
dans la sphère privée et publique des
époques représentées ? Que dit la loi sur
la position des femmes dans la société aux
périodes évoquées ?
Left top:
Jean-Antoine Watteau
Satyr Pouring Wine
1717
Black, red and white chalk
Left bottom:
Right:
Georges Seurat
Female Nude
Around 1879–81
Black Conté crayon over stumped graphite
Above:
Charles-Joseph Natoire
The Life Class at the Royal Academy of Painting and
Sculpture
1746
Pen, black and brown ink, grey wash and watercolour
over black chalk
Ces questionnements et analyses peuvent
mener les élèves à faire des recherches sur
Olympe de Gouge (1748-1793), Eugénie
Niboyet (1796-1883), ou encore Suzanne
Valadon (1865-1938), figures féministes
importantes, contemporaines de la période
de l’exposition. De plus, parler du combat
de ces femmes permettrait aux élèves
de faire le lien avec les périodes d’aprèsguerres, jusqu’à la société d’aujourd’hui,
afin de comparer la position des femmes
dans l’histoire en France.
REGARDE!: WHICH WOMEN?
FULL ENGLISH TRANSLATION
From idealised women in historical
paintings to the women washing in their
everyday lives, sketches from French
masters give us an interesting viewpoint
of a society and its restrictions, disrupted
over time. The changes are significant and
enable us to see the ornate underbelly of
history. However, the main subject of the
representations, women, are often brushed
to the side, and their position in society is
almost completely diluted in a man’s world.
Beginning our exploration with Watteau, in
a Satyr Pouring Wine from 1717, mythology
becomes a pretext for the representation
of nudity. During this period, the only
authorised representations of nudes were
those that were placed in a historical,
mythological or religious context.
As we can see in the watercolor The Life
Class at the Royal Academy of Painting
and Sculpture by Natoire from 1746, all
artists from the Academy either had to
learn how to draw the nude by copying
their predecessors, or during life drawing
classes. However, the nude form is not
insignificant in art, as it has continuously
been a source of controversy. Indeed, the
naked body needed to convey moral and
aesthetical values while hiding eroticism
in order to be accepted by a society firmly
condemning pornography. When artists
started moving away from conventional
representations of the naked body, such as
in Manet’s La Toilette from 1860, the Salon
reinforced censorship, and rejected artists
had no other alternative than to create and
display their works of art at the Salon des
Refusés.
At the start of the Third Republic the
dismantlement of the Bureau of Censorship
in 1880 consequently eased the circulation
of nude images and representing the
naked body in everyday life became more
common. Whereas the listless woman in
Study for ‘La Grande Odalisque’ by Ingres,
1813-14 justifies herself by an imaginary
Orient, the Female Nude by Seurat,
1879-81 or the Seated Woman by Matisse,
1919, no longer pretend to be a part of
any context other than that of everyday
life; they are simply there, offered to the
onlooker.
But what place is given to women in a
world where the vast majority of artists,
sponsors and viewers are men? At the end
of the 19th century, the female form was
the central subject of art and while some
models may have become the main focus,
too few testimonies of their experiences
remain. Today we only remember the
men who have immortalised them.
This absence of social recognition, an
accepted practice at this time in French
society, too often hid the harsh and cruel
treatment of the models. Thanks to the
article, “Modeling for Degas”, written by
Alice Michel and published in 1919 in the
Mercure de France, we see how Pauline,
Degas’s model, is forced daily into difficult
poses, suffers from the cold and dirt of
the studio, and even occasionally falls
victim to physical abuse by Degas himself.
This woman’s story leads us to consider
the nude model differently. In Delacroix’s
Sheet with Two Studies of a Female Nude,
did the model not catch cold? Did she
not suffer from terrible cramps? What is
the model of Ingres’s Study for La Grande
Odalisque thinking about? Is she dreading
the possible violent consequences if she is
unable to hold the pose long enough?
Woman, frozen in history as a silent,
contemplative object, graciously offered up
to the gaze of man; artist, patron or even
simply an onlooker. Would we gaze upon
them in the same way if we knew what
these women really had to say to us?
ACTIVITIES:
BODY PARTS AND DAILY ROUTINE
Intended for KS3
While looking at the drawings, describe the
different body parts. These descriptions
can be an opportunity to use comparative
words and superlatives, either by
comparing drawings together, or by
comparing them with the actual body.
Furthermore, for the drawings that depict
washing up, observation and description
can become the starting point to talking
about our daily routine not only for ‘me’
but also for ‘she’ or ‘he’, in the present
or in the past. Have our bodies or habits
changed over the years? For the most
daring pupils, describing the models’ daily
lives in the imperfect tense could be quite
challenging!
WOMEN IN FRENCH HISTORY
Intended for KS4 and KS5
This exhibition juxtaposes sketches of nude
women from different centuries. We notice
changes in the way bodies are represented
according to their context: historical or
mythological scenes, or later in the private
sphere, the viewer becomes a peeping
Tom. Even though women are at the heart
of these works of art, they are noticeably
absent from the exclusive male art world.
What is the social position of women in this
world, both by their artistic production or
the way they are represented? And more
generally, how are women perceived in
both the private and the public spheres
during the period when these drawings
were produced? What does the law say
regarding women’s rights and duties in
society at these times?
These questions and the subsequent
analyses could lead pupils to conduct some
research on Olympe de Gouge (1748-1793),
Eugénie Niboyet (1796-1883), or Suzanne
Valadon (1865-1938), important feminist
figures contemporary to the period of the
exhibition. Moreover, talking about these
women’s fight for rights could enable
pupils to make a connection between
these drawings and the post-war periods
up to today’s society, in order to compare
women’s rights and their position in French
history.
9: TEACHING
RESOURCE CD
This Teaching Resource CD includes
selected highlights and images from the
MANTEGNA TO MATISSE exhibition. All
the works on display in the gallery are part
of The Courtauld’s prints and drawings
collection. This disc has been specially
formatted to be easy to use. Images can
be copied and downloaded as long as
they are used for educational purposes
only. The images have all been formatted
for use with white boards or projectors. A
copyright statement is printed at the end of
this section which outlines authorised and
restricted usage. This should be read by
every user before using this resource.
The works are grouped into three sections
depending upon their age.
1: EARLIER DRAWINGS
From the Netherlandish, Italian, German
and French schools, these exquisite
drawings represent earlier works from 15th
to17th century Europe
2: 18TH CENTURY DRAWINGS
Ranging from works by Watteau to
Gainsborough to Tiepolo
HOW TO USE THIS CD
This CD has been formatted to work with as
many browsers as possible including Linux,
Macintosh OS and Microsoft Windows.
This is why it will not launch immediately
when inserted in your computer.
Please follow the instructions below to
launch this interactive CD.
INSTRUCTIONS:
• Open the Data folder
• Inside are 3 folders: masterdrawings,
graphics and style
• Open the masterdrawings folder
• Inside is a sub-folder: Images and 4
html files: 18th century drawings, 19th
and 20th century drawings, earlier
drawings and index.
• Double click on index, one of the html
documents.
This will then launch the Mantegna to
Matisse teaching resources in your web
browser.
Click on a menu or click on an image to
enlarge as you would use a webpage.
3: 19TH AND 20TH CENTURY DRAWINGS
Ranging from Constable to Turner to van
Gogh to Picasso
IMAGE CD COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
1. The images contained on the Teaching
Resource CD are for educational purposes
only. They should never be used for
commercial or publishing purposes, be
sold or otherwise disposed of, reproduced
or exhibited in any form or manner
(including any exhibition by means of
a television broadcast or on the World
Wide Web [Internet]) without the express
permission of the copyright holder, The
Courtauld Gallery, London.
2. Images should not be manipulated,
cropped or altered.
3. The copyright in all works of art used
in this resource remains vested with The
Courtauld Gallery, London. All rights and
permissions granted by The Courtauld
Gallery and The Courtauld Institute of Art
are non-transferable to third parties unless
contractually agreed beforehand.
Please caption all our images with
‘© The Courtauld Gallery, London’.
4. Staff and students are welcome to
download and print out images, in order to
illustrate research and coursework (such as
essays and presentations). Digital images
may be stored on academic intranet
databases (private/internal computer
system).
5. As a matter of courtesy, please always
contact relevant lenders/artists for images
to be reproduced in the public domain.
For a broader use of our images (internal
short run publications or brochures for
example), you will need to contact
The Courtauld Gallery for permission.
Please contact us at: Courtauld Images,
The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset
House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN.
[email protected],
Tel: +44 (0)20 7848 2879.
Unless otherwise stated all images
© The Samuel Courtauld Trust,
The Courtauld Gallery, London
Please visit our following pages for more
information on:
• Public Programmes: www.courtauld.
ac.uk/publicprogrammes, where you can
download other resources, organise a
school visit and keep up to date with all
our exciting educational activities at The
Courtauld Institute of Art.
• The Courtauld Gallery: www.courtauld.
ac.uk/gallery, where you can learn more
about our collection, exhibitions and
related events.
If your web browser is unable to open the
folder you can open the data folder, inside
which you will find all of the images saved
as jpeg files.
Art and Design, History, Art History, and
other humanities.
To download a pdf of this teachers
resource please visit www.courtauld.ac.uk/
publicprogrammes/onlinelearning
WITH THANKS
1: INTRODUCTION TO THE EXHIBITION
2: HOW TO READ A DRAWING
Mary Camp
3: DRAWING IN THE MASTER’S STUDIO
Anita V. Sganzerla
4: DRAWING THE LINE
Niccola Shearman
5: MAKING PAPER
Amanda Saroff
6: EXPRESSIVE ARTS
Matthew Krishanu
8: REGARDE!: QUELLE FEMMES?
Marie Sautin
9: TEACHING RESOURCES CD
Shannon Hanrahan and Alice Odin
MASTER DRAWINGS FROM
THE COURTAULD GALLERY
First Edition
Teachers resources are free to full time
teachers, lecturers and other education
and learning professionals. To be used for
education purposes only.
Any redistribution or reproduction of any
materials herein is strictly prohibited
Joff Whitten
Gallery Education Programmer
Courtauld Institute of Art
Somerset House, Strand
LONDON, WC2R 0RN
0207 848 2705
[email protected]
All details correct at time of going to press

teachers` resource - Courtauld Institute of Art

Transcription

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