1000 Drawings of Genius. Victoria Charles

Century

      128. Luca Signorelli, c. 1440–1523, Italian, Head of a Woman, date unknown. Pencil on paper. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Early Renaissance.

      If Alberti was the first theorist of Renaissance art, Giorgio Vasari was its first historian. His Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori (Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects) is considered by many to be the first important book of Art History. His treatise brings together the biographies of major Italian artists from Cimabue to the mid-16th century. In the introduction, Vasari verses on the techniques of the arts, among which drawing is granted a central role. Harsh debates aroused in Vasari’s time and during the following centuries between the defenders of drawing and colour, who argued over which of the two played a more important part in painting. In the text which has been selected, Vasari argues that drawing is not only fundamental for painting, but also for the other arts:

“The Nature and Materials of Design or Drawing.

      “Seeing that Design, the parent of our three arts, Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting, having its origin in the intellect, draws out from many single things a general judgment, […] we may conclude that design is not other than a visible expression and declaration of our inner conception and of that which others have imagined and given form to in their idea. And from this, perhaps, arose the proverb among the ancients ‘ex ungue leonem‘ when a certain clever person, seeing carved in a stone block the claw only of a lion, apprehended in his mind from its size and form all the parts of the animal and then the whole together, just as if he had had it present before his eyes. […]

      “But let this be as it may, what design needs, when it has derived from the judgment the mental image of anything, is that the hand, through the study and practice of many years, may be free and apt to draw and to express correctly, with the pen, the silverpoint, the charcoal, the chalk, or other instrument, whatever nature has created. For when the intellect puts forth refined and judicious conceptions, the hand which has practised design for many years, exhibits the perfection and excellence of the arts as well as the knowledge of the artist. […]

      “The masters who practise these arts have named or distinguished the various kinds of design according to the description of the drawing which they make. Those which are touched lightly and just indicated with the pen or other instrument are called sketches, as shall be explained in another place. Those, again, that have the first lines encircling an object are called profiles or outlines.

“Use of Design (or Drawing) in the Various Arts.

      “All these, whether we call them profiles or otherwise, are as useful to architecture and sculpture as to painting. Their chief use indeed is in Architecture, because its designs are composed only of lines, which so far as the architect is concerned, are nothing else than the beginning and the end of his art, for all the rest, which is carried out with the aid of models of wood formed from the said lines, is merely the work of carvers and masons.

      “In Sculpture, drawing is of service in the case of all the profiles, because in going round from view to view the sculptor uses it when he wishes to delineate the forms which please him best, or which he intends to bring out in every dimension, whether in wax, or clay, or marble, or wood, or other material.

      “In Painting, the lines are of service in many ways, but especially in outlining every figure, because when they are well drawn, and made correct and in proportion, the shadows and lights that are then added give the strongest relief to the lines of the figure and the result is all excellence and perfection. […] When he has trained his hand by steady practice in drawing (figures in relief, plaster casts), let him begin to copy from nature and make a good and certain practice herein, with all possible labour and diligence, for the things studied from nature are really those which do honour to him who strives to master them, since they have in themselves […] that simple and easy sweetness which is nature’s own, and which can only be learned perfectly from her, and never to a sufficient degree from the things of art. Hold it moreover for certain, that the practice that is acquired by many years of study in drawing, as has been said above, is the true light of design and that which makes men really proficient.”

Giorgio Vasari, Introduction to Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori, 1550

      129. Hieronymus Bosch, c. 1450–1516, Flemish, Studies of Monsters, date unknown. Pen and ink on paper, 31.8 × 21 cm. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Northern Renaissance.

      HIERONYMUS BOSCH

      (Hertogenbosch, c. 1450–1516)

      Born in the middle of the century, Bosch experienced the drama of the highly-charged Renaissance and its wars of religion. Medieval traditions and values were crumbling, paving the way to thrust humankind into a new universe where faith lost some of its power and much of its magic. His favourite allegories were hell, heaven and lust. He believed that everyone had to choose between one of two options: heaven or hell. Bosch brilliantly exploited the symbolism of a wide range of fruit and plants to lend sexual overtones to his themes.

      130. Hieronymus Bosch, c. 1450–1516, Flemish, Two Witches, date unknown. Pen and ink on paper, 12.5 × 8.5 cm. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. Northern Renaissance.

      131. Perugino (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci), c. 1450–1523, Italian, Study of a Kneeling Youth and of the Head of Another, 1500. Metalpoint on pale pink-beige prepared paper, 22 × 11.5 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Early Renaissance.

      132. Luca Signorelli, c. 1440–1523, Italian, Nude Man Seen from Behind Carrying a Corpse on His Shoulders, c. 1500. Black chalk, brown wash, and watercolour on paper, 35.5 × 22.5 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Early Renaissance.

      SIGNORELLI

      (Cortona, c. 1440–1523)

      Signorelli was a painter from Cortona but was active in various cities of central Italy like Florence, Orvieto and Rome. Probably a pupil of Piero della Francesca, he added solidity to his figures and a unique use of light, as well as having an interest in the representation of actions like contemporary artists, the Pollaiuolo brothers.

      In 1483, he was called to complete the cycle of frescos in the Sistine Chapel in Rome, which means he must have had a solid reputation at that time. He painted a magnificent series of six frescos illustrating the end of the world and The Last Judgment for the Orvieto Cathedral. There can be seen a wide variety of nudes displayed in multiple poses, which were surpassed at that time only by Michelangelo, who knew of them. By the end of his career, he had a large workshop in Cortona where he produced conservative paintings, including numerous altarpieces.

      133. Luca Signorelli, c. 1440–1523, Italian, The Damned, c. 1500. Black pencil on paper, 28.5 × 22 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Early Renaissance.

      134. Lo Spagna (Giovanni di Pietro), c. 1450–1528, Italian, Standing Saint, date unknown. Pen and ink on paper, 36.5 × 22 cm. Musée Condé, Chantilly. Early Renaissance.

      135. Luca Signorelli, c. 1440–1523, Italian, Head of a Man with a Cap (Dante?), date unknown. Charcoal on paper, 23.7 × 15.5 cm. Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin. Early Renaissance.

      136. Perugino (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci), c. 1450–1523, Italian, Bacchus or Ephebos, date unknown. Black pencil, pen and white lead on watermarked white paper. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Early Renaissance.