2. Learning ObjectivesLearning Objectives
1. Discuss the history of drawing in the
Italian Renaissance and how it came
to be considered an art in its own
right.
2. Distinguish between dry and liquid
drawing media and list examples of
each.
3. Give some examples of how drawing
can be an innovative medium.
3. IntroductionIntroduction
• The video for the band a-ha's "Take On
Me" was animated via rotoscope by
Michael Patterson and Candace
Reckinger.
Viewers became entranced by the young
woman's being inserted into the world of
drawings.
• Drawing can be both a starting point
and a finished artwork in itself.
6. From Preparatory Sketch to FinishedFrom Preparatory Sketch to Finished
Work of ArtWork of Art
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• Through drawing, artists can illustrate
different approaches to compositions.
It is useful in its directness as well as its
ability to record visual history.
Today, drawing may be viewed as an
activity accessible to both artists and
ordinary people.
7. From Preparatory Sketch to FinishedFrom Preparatory Sketch to Finished
Work of ArtWork of Art
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• An early drawing, possibly by the
workshop of Maso Finiguerra, shows a
youth working on expensive paper
which he would have sanded clean after
each drawing.
• Paper was not manufactured in the
West until the thirteenth century and
was preceded by papyrus in Egypt and
parchment in ancient Rome.
9. From Preparatory Sketch to FinishedFrom Preparatory Sketch to Finished
Work of ArtWork of Art
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• Gutenberg's invention of the printing
press spurred a need for paper.
• Because it required large quantities of
cloth rags to produce, paper remained
a luxury commodity and drawing was
often not done on paper.
Students learned painting from copying
a master's work.
10. From Preparatory Sketch to FinishedFrom Preparatory Sketch to Finished
Work of ArtWork of Art
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• In Lives of the Painters, Giorgio Vasari
wrote that crowds flocked to see
Leonardo's cartoon drawing for
Madonna and Child with St. Anne and
Infant St. John the Baptist.
This account is the earliest recorded
example of the public admiring a
drawing.
12. From Preparatory Sketch to FinishedFrom Preparatory Sketch to Finished
Work of ArtWork of Art
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• Leonardo's Study for a Sleeve shows
fluidity and spontaneity of line.
The arm is still and smooth in contrast
to the swirling drapery.
In drawing, Leonardo reveals the
imbalance between the unmoving sitter
and his own imagination.
Such drawings are preserved and
collected by connoisseurs as fine art.
15. Dry MediaDry Media
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• Dry media includes metalpoint, chalk,
charcoal, graphite, and pastel.
• Coloring agents, or pigments, are
sometimes mixed with binders,
although binders are not necessary if
the pigment can be applied to the work
directly.
16. Dry MediaDry Media
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• Metalpoint
This style, popular beginning in the late
fifteenth century, involved a metal
stylus applied to a surface prepared with
powdered bones and gumwater.
• Wherever the stylus was applied, a
chemical reaction produced line.
A metalpoint line is pale gray and
delicate; it cannot be made thicker by
increasing pressure.
17. Dry MediaDry Media
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• Metalpoint
Leonardo's Study of a Woman's Head or
of the Angel of Vergine delle Rocce
exhibits shadow rendered with careful
hatching.
• The drawing could not be erased without
resurfacing paper, so the loose and
expressive lines here are particularly
impressive.
18. Leonardo da Vinci, Study of a Woman's Head or of the Angel of the Vergine delle Rocce.
1473. Silverpoint with white highlights on prepared paper, 7-1/8 × 6-1/4". Biblioteca
Reale, Turin, Italy.
Alinari/Bridgeman Images. [Fig. 8-6]
19. The Creative ProcessThe Creative Process
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• Movement and Gesture: Raphael's Alba
Madonna
Raphael was inspired by the freedom of
movement found in Leonardo da Vinci's
drawings.
In the studies for The Alba Madonna,
Raphael worked on both sides of a
single piece of paper.
21. Raphael, Studies for The Alba Madonna (verso).
ca. 1511. Red chalk and pen and ink, 16-5/8 × 10-3/4". Private collection.
Bridgeman Images. [Fig. 8-8]
22. The Creative ProcessThe Creative Process
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• Movement and Gesture: Raphael's Alba
Madonna
The circular format of the final painting
is fully realized in the second study.
• While not all facial expressions are fully
indicated, the emotional atmosphere is
apparent in the fluency of the figures'
composition.
24. Dry MediaDry Media
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• Chalk and charcoal
While the chief concern of metalpoint is
delineation, chalk and charcoal are
able to give a volumetric sense of their
subject.
With the invention of a variety of chalks
by the sixteenth century, artists could
make more gradual transitions from
light to dark.
25. Dry MediaDry Media
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• Chalk and charcoal
Georgia O'Keeffe's Banana Flower
achieves volume and space rendered
with charcoal.
Charcoal, however, was not widely used
in Renaissance works aside from
sinopie, or tracing the outlines of
compositions drawn on a wall prior to
being painted as frescoes.
27. Dry MediaDry Media
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• Chalk and charcoal
The expressive directness and
immediacy of charcoal made it popular
for modern artists.
Käthe Kollwitz's Self-Portrait, Drawing
features the figure's arm realized by
angular gesture lines, expressive and
raw.
• This contrasts with the carefully rendered
hand and face.
29. Dry MediaDry Media
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• Graphite
Lead pencils became increasingly
popular after black chalk became harder
to find in the sixteenth century.
At the request of Napoleon and due to
dwindling availability of imported
pencils, the Conté crayon was
invented.
• It partially substituted clay for graphite.
31. Dry MediaDry Media
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• Graphite
Georges Seurat's Conté crayon study
exhibits the wide range of tonal effects
afforded by the new medium.
Vija Celmins's Untitled (Ocean) further
demonstrates the capabilities of
graphite drawing to be photorealistic.
• The arbitrary frame of a camera lens
suggests a continuance of space.
33. Dry MediaDry Media
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• Pastel
Pastel is a chalk medium with colored
pigment and a nongreasy binder; the
more binder, the harder the stick and
less intense the color.
Edgar Degas was attracted to its direct,
unfinished quality for the portrayal of a
series of women at their bath.
• He invented a new method of building up
pigments in layers with fixative.
35. Dry MediaDry Media
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• Pastel
Mary Cassatt became a student of
Degas and used pastel even more boldly
than her mentor.
• Young Mother, Daughter, and Son
features gestures of line that exceed
their boundaries and seemingly arbitrary
blue strokes throughout.
• Her freedom of line was praised as a
symbol of women's strength.
36. Mary Cassatt, Young Mother, Daughter, and Son.
1913. Pastel on paper, 43-1/4 × 33-1/4". Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester.
Marion Stratten Gould Fund. mag.rochester.edu/. [Fig. 8-15]
37. Dry MediaDry Media
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• Oilstick
Oil made with wax and molded into stick
form allowed the painter to draw with
density without the interference of a
brush.
Sandy Brooke's Fate and Luck: Eclipse
exhibits smeared and transparent
effects, lending to the theme of
ambiguity of omens across cultures.
39. Liquid MediaLiquid Media
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• Pigments are suspended in liquid
binders that flow more easily than dry
media.
• They can also be applied with a brush.
40. Liquid MediaLiquid Media
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• Pen and ink
Renaissance works featured iron-gall
ink, which browns with age despite
being black upon application.
Elisabetta Sirani utilized a quill pen to
create her lines, which vary in width.
• She produced pieces with such speed
that she was forced to work in public to
ensure that her work was her own.
42. Liquid MediaLiquid Media
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• Pen and ink
Jean Dubuffet's Corps de Dame
(meaning both a group of women and
women's bodies) shows great variation
in line, from hairline to strokes about a
half-inch thick.
• It could be interpreted as an attack on
the formal perfection of academic figure
drawing.
44. Liquid MediaLiquid Media
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• Wash and brush
Ink is diluted with water and applied by
brush in broad, flat areas.
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's Adoration of
the Magi is layered with graphite sketch,
pen and ink, and a brown wash.
• These layers help define volume and
form to create dynamics.
45. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, The Adoration of the Magi.
1740s. Pen and brown wash over graphite sketch, 11-3⁄5 × 8-1⁄5". Iris & B. Gerald
Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University.
Mortimer C. Leventritt Fund, 1950.392. [Fig. 8-19]
46. Liquid MediaLiquid Media
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• Wash and brush
Drawing with a brush was a popular
tradition in the East, possibly due to its
dual use as a writing instrument.
• Chinese calligraphy carries a range of
line width with every stroke.
• Liang Kai's representation of Tang poet Li
Bo juxtaposes strokes of diluted ink with
detailed brushwork, as seen in the
figure's face.
47. Liang Kai, The Poet Li Bo Walking and Chanting a Poem.
Southern Song dynasty, ca. 1200. Hanging scroll, ink on paper, 31-3/4 × 11-7/8". Tokyo
National Museum, Japan.
Image: TNM Image Archives. [Fig. 8-20]
48. Innovative Drawing MediaInnovative Drawing Media
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• Henri Matisse considered working with
scissors to be a kind of drawing.
When he was confined to a wheelchair,
he cut large swathes of color freehand
and arranged them into his desired
compositions.
In Venus, the goddess's form is featured
in the negative space of the
composition.
50. Innovative Drawing MediaInnovative Drawing Media
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• Whispers from the Walls is an
installation recreating a 1920s North
Texas house.
The African-American family that lived
there is portrayed life size in charcoal,
based on actual photographs.
The medium was inspired by the artist's
1993 visit to an Italian villa that had
been owned by a slave trader.
51. Whitfield Lovell, Whispers from the Walls.
1999. Mixed-media installation, varying dimensions. Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery, New
York.
Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery, New York. [Fig. 8-22]
52. Innovative Drawing MediaInnovative Drawing Media
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• South African artist William Kentridge
employs drawings in his animated
films.
These films are made of hundreds of
photographs of charcoal drawings that
have been altered successively through
erasure, additions, and redrawings.
The work is inspired by the concept of
memory, particularly of apartheid in
South Africa as well the working force.
53. Innovative Drawing MediaInnovative Drawing Media
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• South African artist William Kentridge
employs drawings in his animated
films.
History of the Main Complaint explores
the meaning of white businessman Soho
Eckstein's life; the theme is recognition
of both his own and white South
Africans' responsibility to admit their
guilt.
54. William Kentridge, History of the Main Complaint.
1996. Stills. Film, 35 mm, shown as video, projection, black and white, and sound
(mono), 5 min. 50 sec. Courtesy of Marion Goodman Gallery, New York.
Courtesy of Marion Goodman Gallery, New York. [Fig. 8-23a]
55. William Kentridge, History of the Main Complaint.
1996. Stills. Film, 35 mm, shown as video, projection, black and white, and sound
(mono), 5 min. 50 sec. Courtesy of Marion Goodman Gallery, New York.
Courtesy of Marion Goodman Gallery, New York. [Fig. 8-23b]
56. William Kentridge, History of the Main Complaint.
1996. Stills. Film, 35 mm, shown as video, projection, black and white, and sound
(mono), 5 min. 50 sec. Courtesy of Marion Goodman Gallery, New York.
Courtesy of Marion Goodman Gallery, New York. [Fig. 8-23c]
57. Innovative Drawing MediaInnovative Drawing Media
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• In the world of popular culture, comic
books prize the medium of drawing.
• Marjane Satrapi was inspired to create
her graphic novel, Persepolis,
particularly by Art Spiegelman's Maus:
A Survivor's Tale.
Satrapi was ten years old when
fundamentalists under Ayatollah
Khomeini took over Iran.
58. Innovative Drawing MediaInnovative Drawing Media
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• The featured page from the "Kim
Wilde" chapter of Persepolis shows the
heroine defiantly wearing clothing from
Western culture, an act encouraged by
her parents.
The black and white illustrations signify
the lack of moral middle ground in
revolutionary Iran.
60. The Critical ProcessThe Critical Process
Thinking about DrawingThinking about Drawing
• Frank Auerbach's Head of Catherine
Lampert VI was created through a
series of drawings that were wiped out
over a period of years.
An eraser established light planes across
the figure's face.
• Auerbach's studies were often an effort
to capture the subject's energy for later
creations.
62. Thinking BackThinking Back
1. Discuss the history of drawing in the
Italian Renaissance and how it came
to be considered an art in its own
right.
2. Distinguish between dry and liquid
drawing media and list examples of
each.
3. Give some examples of how drawing
can be an innovative medium.