1000 Drawings of Genius. Victoria Charles

Illustration for Dante’s Divine Comedy: Inferno, Canto XXXI, c. 1480–1500. Silverpoint, pen and ink on parchment, 32.5 × 47.5 cm. Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin. Early Renaissance.

      86. Filippino Lippi, c. 1457–1504, Italian, Standing Youth with Hands Behind His Back and a Seated Youth Reading, 1457/1458-1504. Metalpoint, highlighted with white gouache, on pink prepared paper, 24.5 × 21.6 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Early Renaissance.

      87. Sandro Botticelli (Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi), 1445–1510, Italian, Illustration for Dante’s Divine Comedy: Paradiso, Canto VI, c. 1480–1500. Silverpoint, pen and ink on parchment, 32.5 × 47.5 cm. Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin. Early Renaissance.

      88. Gentile Bellini, c. 1429–1507, Italian, Campo San Lio in Venice, c. 1490–1507. Pen and ink on paper, 44.2 × 59.1 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Early Renaissance.

      89. Martin Schongauer, c. 1435–1491, German, Bust of a Man in a Hat Gazing Upward, c. 1480–1490. Pen and carbon black ink, over pen and brown ink, on paper prepared with sanguine wash, 13 × 9.6 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Northern Renaissance.

      90. Filippino Lippi, c. 1457–1504, Italian, Head of an Old Man Leaning, 1480–1483. Silverpoint enhanced with white, on pink paper, 15 × 11.3 cm. Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig. Early Renaissance.

      91. Sandro Botticelli (Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi), 1445–1510, Italian, Abundance or Autumn, c. 1480–1485. Pen, ink, wash and black and red chalk on paper, 31.7 × 25.2 cm. British Museum, London. Early Renaissance.

      92. Leonardo da Vinci, 1452–1519, Italian, Study for Head of a Young Girl, c. 1483. Silverpoint on paper, 18.1 × 15.9 cm. Biblioteca Reale, Turin. High Renaissance.

      93. Filippino Lippi (attributed to), c. 1457–1504, Italian, Virgin and Child Attended by Angels, 1457/1458-1504. Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, highlighted with white gouache, 17.5 × 22.2 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Early Renaissance.

      94. Leonardo da Vinci, 1452–1519, Italian, Grotesque Profile of a Man, c. 1485–1495. Pen and ink on paper, 12.8 × 10.4 cm. Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan. High Renaissance.

      95. Leonardo da Vinci, 1452–1519, Italian, Head of a Man in Profile, Facing Right, c. 1485–1490. Pen and ink on paper, 7.8 × 5.6 cm. Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan. High Renaissance.

      96. Leonardo da Vinci, 1452–1519, Italian, Two Grotesque Profiles Confronted, c. 1485–1490. Pen and ink with wash on paper, 16.3 × 14.3 cm. Royal Collection Trust, London. High Renaissance.

      97. Domenico Ghirlandaio (Domenico Bigordi), 1448/1449-1494, Italian, Young Woman (study for The Birth of St Mary at Santa Maria Novella), c. 1485. Pen on watermarked white paper, 23.2 × 16.1 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Early Renaissance.

      98. Albrecht Dürer, 1471–1528, German, Albrecht Dürer the Elder, 1486. Silverpoint on paper, 28.4 × 21.2 cm. Albertina, Vienna. Northern Renaissance.

      99. Domenico Ghirlandaio (Domenico Bigordi), 1448/1449-1494, Italian, Two Standing Women, c. 1485. Pen on watermarked white paper, 26 × 16.9 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Early Renaissance.

      100. Albrecht Dürer, 1471–1528, German, Self-Portrait as a Thirteen-Year-Old, 1484. Silverpoint on paper, 27.3 × 19.6 cm. Albertina, Vienna. Northern Renaissance.

      101. Antonio del Pollaiuolo, c. 1432–1498, Italian, Three Nude Men, 1486. Pen and brown ink, brown wash on paper, 26.5 × 35.7 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Early Renaissance.

      102. Andrea Mantegna, 1430/1431-1506, Italian, Emperor Trajan in the Battle Against the Dacians, after 1488–1489. Chalk and pen, 27.2 × 19.8 cm. Albertina, Vienna. Early Renaissance.

      ANDREA MANTEGNA

      (Isola di Carturo, 1430/1431 – Mantua, 1506)

      Mantegna; humanist, geometrist, archaeologist, of great scholastic and imaginative intelligence, dominated the whole of northern Italy by virtue of his imperious personality. Aiming at optical illusion, he mastered perspective. He trained in painting at the Padua School that Donatello and Paolo Uccello had previously attended. Even at a young age, commissions for Andrea’s work flooded in, for example the frescos of the Ovetari Chapel of Padua.

      In a short space of time, Mantegna found his niche as a modernist due to his highly original ideas and the use of perspective in his works. His marriage with Nicolosia Bellini, the sister of Giovanni, paved the way for his entrée into Venice.

      Mantegna reached an artistic maturity with his Pala San Zeno. He remained in Mantova and became the artist for one of the most prestigious courts in Italy – the Court of Gonzaga. Classical art was born.

      Despite his links with Bellini and Leonardo da Vinci, Mantegna refused to adopt their innovative use of colour or leave behind his own technique of engraving.

      103. Leonardo da Vinci, 1452–1519, Italian, The Vitruvian Man, c. 1490–1492. Pen and ink on paper, 34.3 × 24.5 cm. Galleria dell’Accademia, Venice. High Renaissance.

      104. Leonardo da Vinci, 1452–1519, Italian, Propulsion Flying Machine, 1487–1508. Pen on white paper. Bibliothèque de l’Institut, Paris. High Renaissance.

      105. Sandro Botticelli (Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi), 1445–1510, Italian, An Angel, c. 1490. Chalk, pen and wash heightened with white on paper, 26.6 × 16.5 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Early Renaissance.

      106. Perugino (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci), c. 1450–1523, Italian, Landscape, 1489–1490. Brush and brown wash, highlighted with white gouache on grey-green prepared paper, 20.4 × 28 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Early Renaissance.

      PERUGINO (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci)

      (Citta della Pieve, c. 1450 – Fontignano, 1523)

      Perugino’s art, like Fra Angelico’s, had its roots in the old Byzantine tradition of painting. The latter had departed further and further from any representation of the human form, until it became merely a symbol of religious ideas. Perugino, working under the influence of his time, restored body and substance to the figures, but still made them, as of old, primarily the symbols of an ideal. It was not until the 17th century that artists began to paint landscape for its own sake.

      However, the union of landscape and figures counts very much for Perugino, because one of the secrets of composition