1000 Drawings of Genius. Victoria Charles

in date of the great men who had the desire to create in a picture a kind of mystic unity brought about by the fusion of matter and spirit. Now that the Primitives had concluded their experiments, ceaselessly pursued during two centuries, by the conquest of the methods of painting, he was able to pronounce the words which served as a password to all later artists worthy of the name: painting is a spiritual thing, cosa mentale. He completed Florentine draughtsmanship by applying a sharp subtlety to modelling by light and shade, which his predecessors had used only to give greater precision to their contours. This marvellous draughtsmanship, this modelling and chiaroscuro he used not only to paint the exterior appearance of the body but also, as no one before him had done, to cast over it a reflection of the mystery of the inner life. In the Mona Lisa and his other masterpieces he even used landscape not merely as a more or less picturesque decoration, but as a sort of echo of that interior life and an element of a perfect harmony.

      Relying on the still quite novel laws of perspective, this doctor of scholastic wisdom, who was at the same time an initiator of modern thought, substituted for the discursive manner of the Primitives the principle of concentration which is the basis of classical art. The picture is no longer presented to us as an almost fortuitous aggregate of details and episodes. It is an organism in which all the elements, lines and colours, shadows and lights, compose a subtle tracery converging on a spiritual, a sensuous centre. It was not with the external significance of objects, but with their inward and spiritual significance, that Leonardo was occupied.

      178. Hans Holbein the Elder, 1460/1465-1524, German, Ambrosius and Hans Holbein, 1511. Silverpoint on white-coated paper, 10.3 × 15.5 cm. Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin. Northern Renaissance.

      179. Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), 1489/1490-1576, Italian, Portrait of a Young Woman, 1510–1511. Black pencil on paper, 42 × 26.5 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. High Renaissance.

      180. Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), 1489/1490-1576, Italian, Rider and Fallen Soldier, c. 1537. Chalk on paper. Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich. High Renaissance.

      181. Follower of Raphael (1483–1520), Italian, Saint Michael Slaying the Demon, c. 1511–1520. Pen and brown ink, brown wash, black chalk and white heightening, 41.6 × 27.7 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. High Renaissance.

      182. Hieronymus Bosch, c. 1450–1516, Flemish, A Group of Ten Spectators, 1516. Pen and brown ink on paper, 12.4 × 12.6 cm. The Morgan Library and Museum, New York. Northern Renaissance.

      183. Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), 1489/1490-1576, Italian, Studies of Saint Sebastian and the Virgin and Child, c. 1519. Pen and brown ink on paper, 16.2 × 13.6 cm. Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin. High Renaissance.

      184. Amico Aspertini, c. 1474–1552, Italian, Masculine Nude or A God of the Rivers, date unknown. Chalk and wash on paper. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Mannerism.

      185. Niccolò dell’ Abate, 1509–1571, Italian, Landscape, date unknown. Pen and ink on paper. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Mannerism.

      186. Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, 1484–1546, Italian, Architecture Study, c. 1513–1517. Pen and brown ink over a sketch in pencil, 33.4 × 48.5 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. High Renaissance.

      187. Baccio Bandinelli (attributed to), 1488–1560, Italian, An Unidentified Subject, with Figures Kneeling before a Bearded Man, c. 1515. Red chalk, 25.5 × 32.5 cm. British Museum, London. High Renaissance.

      188. Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), 1489/1490-1576, Italian, Landscape with a Castle, 1512. Pen and brown ink, 15 × 21.6 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. High Renaissance.

      189. Niklaus Manuel Deutsch, 1484–1530, Swiss, The Mocking of Christ, 1513–1514. Pen and black ink with white and gold highlights on red-brown prepared paper, 54.1 × 21.7 cm. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Northern Renaissance.

      190. Follower of Albrecht Altdorfer (c. 1480–1538), German, The Holy Family with Saint Elizabeth and the Infant Saint John, 1513. Pen and dark brown ink highlighted with brush and opaque white on light brown prepared paper, 21.5 × 14.8 cm.The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Northern Renaissance.

      191. Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio), 1483–1520, Italian, Study for The Madonna of the Fish, 1513–1514. Red chalk and black pencil on paper, 26.7 × 26.4 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. High Renaissance.

      192. Albrecht Dürer, 1471–1528, German, Barbara Dürer (Dürer’s Mother), 1514. Charcoal, 42.2 × 30.6 cm. Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin. Northern Renaissance.

      193. Albrecht Altdorfer, c. 1480–1538, German, Preparatory Drawing for the Frescoes for the Royal Baths in Regensburg, c. 1515. Pen and ink, wash. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Northern Renaissance.

      194. Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio), 1483–1520, Italian, Hebe and Proserpina, 1517. Red chalk on paper, 25.7 × 16.4 cm. Teylers Museum, Haarlem. High Renaissance.

      195. Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio), 1483–1520, Italian, Two Masculine Nudes, 1515. Red chalk and metalpoint on paper, 41 × 28 cm. Albertina, Vienna. High Renaissance.

      196. Rosso Fiorentino, 1494–1540, Italian, Macabre Allegory, 1517–1518. Pen, ink and wash on paper. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Mannerism.

      197. Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), 1489/1490-1576, Italian, Two Satyrs in a Landscape, date unknown. Pen and brown ink, white gouache on fine, off-white laid paper, 21.6 × 15.1 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. High Renaissance.

      198. Matthias Grünewald, c. 1475–1528, German, St. Dorothy with the Basket of Flowers, c. 1520. Black chalk and watercolour, heightened with white on paper, 35.8 × 25.6 cm. Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin. Northern Renaissance.

      199. Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola), 1503–1540, Italian, Study of a Kanephoros for the decoration of the vault of Santa Maria della Steccata, Parma, c. 1533–1535. Pencil and red chalk, heightened with white, 27.6 × 18.1 cm. Albertina, Vienna. Mannerism.

      200. Correggio (Antonio Allegri), 1489?-1534, Italian, The Adoration of the Magi, c. 1517. Red chalk and white gouache on paper, 29.1 × 19.7 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. High Renaissance.

      CORREGGIO

      (Antonio Allegri)

      (Correggio, 1489?-1534)

      Correggio