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

TEACHERS’ RESOURCE MANTEGNA TO MATISSE: MASTER DRAWINGS FROM THE COURTAULD GALLERY Cover image: Compiled and produced by Joff Whitten and Mary Camp Johannes Stradanus (Jan van der Straet) Pearl Diving Around 1596 SUGGESTED CURRICULUM LINKS FOR Pen and brown ink with wash and white bodycolour EACH ESSAY ARE MARKED IN BLUE Right: To book a visit to the gallery or to discuss any of the education Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec projects at The Courtauld Gallery please contact: Au lit (detail) e: [email protected] Around 1896 t: 0207 848 1058 Graphite and black chalk Unless otherwise stated all images A full set of academic references for material included is available © The Samuel Courtauld Trust, on request 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 artists reaching for their sketchbooks to which the artist used to inhabit the world of most important collections of drawings in capture a scene for their own pleasure – his dreams and imagination. Britain. Organised in collaboration with The Parmigianino’s Seated woman asleep is Frick Collection in New York, this exhibition a wonderful example of such an informal Canaletto’s expansive and meticulously presents a magnificent selection of some study surviving from the early 16th century. composed View from Somerset Gardens, sixty of its finest works. It offers a rare Drawn approximately 100 years later in looking towards London Bridge is one of opportunity to consider the art of drawing around 1625, Guercino’s Child seen from several highlights of a section exploring in the hands of its greatest masters, behind retains the remarkable freshness the relationship between drawing and the including Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci, and immediacy of momentary observation. landscape. This group stretches back as Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Goya, Manet, Guercino was a compulsive and brilliantly early as Fra Bartolomeo’s Sweep of a river Cézanne and Matisse. gifted draughtsman. Here the red chalk with fishermen drawn in around 1505-09, lends itself perfectly to the play of light on and also includes a particularly strong The exhibition opens with a group of the soft flesh of the child sheltering in its selection of landscapes from the golden works dating from the 15th century, from mother’s lap. age of the British watercolour. The interest both Northern and Southern Europe. in landscape is nowhere more powerfully An exquisite and extremely rare early No less appealing in its informality is combined with the expressive possibilities Netherlandish drawing of a seated female Rembrandt’s spontaneous and affectionate of watercolour than in the work of J.M.W. saint from around 1475-85 is rooted in sketch of his wife, Saskia, sitting in bed Turner. His late Dawn after the Wreck of late medieval workshop traditions. It was cradling one of her children. The exhibition around 1841 was immortalised by the critic also at this time that drawing assumed a offers a striking contrast between this John Ruskin, who imagined the solitary dog new central role in nourishing individual modest domestic image and Peter Paul shown howling on a deserted beach to be creativity, exemplified by a sheet with two Rubens’s contemporaneous depiction of mourning its owner, lost at sea. For Ruskin, rapid pen and ink sketches by Leonardo his own wife, the beautiful young Helena this was one of Turner’s ‘saddest and most da Vinci. These remarkably free and Fourment. Celebrated as one of the great tender works’. exploratory sketches show the artist drawings of the 17th century, this unusually experimenting with the dynamic twisting large work shows the richly dressed Helena The Courtauld collection includes an pose of a female figure for a painting of – who was then about 17 – moving aside outstanding selection of drawings Saint Mary Magdalene. For Renaissance her veil to look directly at the viewer. and watercolours by the great French artists such as Leonardo, drawing, or Created with a dazzling combination of red, Impressionist and Post-Impressionist disegno, was the fundamental basis of all black and white chalks, this drawing was artists for whom the Gallery is most the arts: the expression not just of manual made as an independent work of art and famous. Apples, Bottle and Chairback is dexterity but of the artist’s mind and was not intended for sale or public display. one of Cézanne’s finest late works in any intellect. In its imposing presence, mesmerising skill technique. Here we see the artist pushing and subtle characterisation, it is the equal watercolour to its extreme through his These ideas about the nature of drawing of any painted portrait. extraordinary intuitive but masterful achieved their full expression in the handling of successive layers of coloured flowering of draughtsmanship in the 16th The central role of drawing in artistic washes over luminous white paper. century. At the heart of this section of the training is underlined in a remarkable Another highlight of this group is the exhibition is Michelangelo’s magisterial sheet by Charles Joseph Natoire from equally remarkable large crayon drawing The Dream. Created around 1533, this 1746. It shows the artist, seated in the left by Cézanne’s younger contemporary, highly complex allegory was made by foreground, instructing students during a Georges Seurat. His standing female nude Michelangelo as a gift for a close friend life class at the prestigious Académie royale materialises in an almost unfathomable and it was one of the earliest drawings to in Paris. Drawing after the life model and manner from an intricate web of curving be produced as an independent work of antique sculpture was considered essential crayon lines. The exhibition concludes art. More typically, drawings were made in the 18th and 19th centuries. with work by the two greatest artists of in preparation for other works, including the 20th century, Picasso and Matisse, paintings, sculptures and prints. Pieter One of the great champions of this who reinvented the art of drawing for the Bruegel the Elder’s engaging scene of academic tradition was Jean Auguste modern age. drunken peasants cavorting at a festival in Dominique Ingres. The beautiful elongated the Flemish village of Hoboken was drawn forms of the reclining nude in his Study for The Courtauld’s drawings collection is in 1559 in preparation for a print. Whereas the ‘Grand Odalisque’, 1814, represents largely the result of a series of remarkable Michelangelo sought ideal divinely inspired the highest refinement of a precise yet individual gifts. They include the drawings beauty in the human figure, Bruegel here expressive linear drawing style rooted presented by Samuel Courtauld alongside revels in the disorder of everyday life. in the academy. Outside the academy, his collection of French Impressionist drawing could offer the artist a means of paintings, the bequest by Sir Robert Witt Despite the important preparatory function liberating creativity. Goya’s Cantar y bailar of some 3,000 drawings in 1952, and Count of drawing, many of the most appealing (Singing and dancing), 1819-20, comes Antoine Seilern’s Princes Gate bequest works in the exhibition resulted from from one of the private drawing albums 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” in a moment of blindness since the artist subject in its most perfect form: Marion Blackett Milner On Not Being Able must look away from the thing he wishes to “The subject [of the paragone] in to Paint, London, 1950 depict to face the blank page on which he itself is so difficult that it cannot be will draw. In that moment he sees only what discussed and even less be resolved, In order to read a drawing, one should is in his imagination. because there is one thing alone that is first establish a definition of what a noble, and is the foundation of art, and drawing is. This definition, however, can Derrida’s explanation corresponds that is disegno (you see, anyone who prove elusive. Deanna Petherbridge, rather nicely to what Leonardo da Vinci possesses good disegno will make good a respected contemporary artist and hypothesized five centuries earlier. art no matter in what medium) … the professor of drawing, argues in her book Leonardo didn’t address what a drawing painter is ready and willing to imitate entitled ‘The Primacy of Drawing’ (2010) is but rather what sight had to do with all the things which nature has made… that drawing resists every attempt at a the making of art. He described vision as [but] It is also possible in painting to simple definition. Rather, she characterizes ‘the most noble sense’ recollecting, and imagine things that would never happen drawing as ‘a curious, paradoxical process, transcending, notions of a ‘noble heart’. in nature…surpassing them and through so intertwined with seeing that the two can He understood visual perception as similar art giving them grace, composing them hardly be separated.’ Part of the difficulty in function to that of a mirror, in which the so they are even better than nature…. in defining drawing is that it embraces ‘visual image’ was reflected onto a plane and to make it seem alive and to do it all many processes and appears in many forms surface within the eye (the ‘impressiva’), in a flat plane (2 dimensions!).” from the unfinished sketch (described as which was in turn apprehended within the non-finito by 16th century Italian writers) to imagination. As such, the mind ‘possessed’ Pontormo, typical of the artists who the highly finished presentation drawing the image and, through the combination addressed this issue, stresses the creative (finito). Drawing is both a thing in itself of mechanical application and geometric aspect of the artist’s quest to make objects and more than itself: it is an independent perspective, translated it directly into more perfect, more saturated in their practice, but is also identified with painting, painting. This process was dependent upon own essence, than even Nature is able to printmaking, sculpture, architecture an apprenticeship of the hand, in which a accomplish. and design, and a whole host of other skill must be learned in order to bring the These anecdotes suggest that rather traditional and contemporary media. It can image into being. than a definition, one can assemble a list be as simple as a few lines or as complex as of essential elements that constitute a the most intricate painting. These arguments, and others like them, were developed inside the framework drawing. It could be said that a drawing Not only artists, but also art historians of a long-running debate known as the is the product that results from the and even philosophers have thought and paragone about the relative merits of creative interaction of the artist’s eye and written a great deal about what a drawing painting versus sculpture, as well as in intellect with an object to be depicted and is and their theories are various. The French relation to the written word. From the time translated by his hand upon the page. It philosopher, Jacques Derrida, one of the of the early Renaissance artists aspired to should both reflect that object but also most important postmodernist theorists the status of poets and writers. Painters and surpass it in depicting the object’s true of the 20th century, stated that ‘drawing sculptors felt that they should not be seen essence. This hypothesis should not be is the hypothesis of sight’. This statement as artisans who simply copied nature, but seen as the single visual truth about an closely links drawing not only with vision, rather, as composers of form whose work object but rather, one of many. as Petherbridge does, but also to a process sprang from their imagination, divinely With these elements outlined, a strategy of dynamic and critical thinking. According inspired. Crucially, in Leonardo’s theory the can be proposed for reading a drawing. to Derrida, the genesis of a drawing occurs path of the image from divine nature to First, it is important to examine where, on the surface of the drawing was considered the spectrum between finito and non-finito to be uninterrupted. This process, in its the drawing sits. This helps to sort out the entirety, was called disegno and it rested purpose of the drawing that should fall into primarily on drawing, the first stage of any one of the following categories: visual project. Image: • To copy and record works of art Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Jacopo Pontormo was a sixteenth-century Study for ‘La Grande Odalisque’ • Drawing as a preparation for a work of art 1814 Florentine painter who apprenticed to Graphite Leonardo for a brief period early in his • To catch a movement or expression career. Towards the end of his life, he (Pontormo) HOW TO READ A DRAWING was asked by a leading humanist scholar, • To explore ideas for the design of Written by Mary Camp Benedetto Varchi, to express his thoughts paintings and sculptures on the paragone. He wrote that the • To produce a beautiful object CURRICULUM LINKS: KS3/4+ greatest problem for the artist was not Art and Design, Art History, History and in the relative qualities of painting or • To engage in the process of drawing as other humanities sculpture but in the quest to render the an end in itself Once the determination of the type of from his library of engraved models after drawing has been made the subject should antiquity and the Renaissance. be stated as well as the means the artist has used to portray it. This would include Ingres used a wide variety of papers a determination of the medium and tools and drawing materials in these sketches used to make the drawing. Following this, including charcoal for light and shadow one should examine the actual marks on studies, pen with ink or sharp graphite for the paper or ground. The basic units of a contour drawings. drawing are lines, marks and traces. The English artist and art critic Roger Fry Ingres’ Study for ‘La Grande Odalisque’ of wrote in the early 20th century that a single 1814 is a finely drawn contour study made line remains abstract (even if gestural) while with sharp graphite and it falls into the two lines together become an intelligible second phase of Ingres’ design process as representation of objects. Lines joined a study as a preparation for a work of art. together can shed their two-dimensionality and suggest planes and contours. The Ingres uses fine lines and delicate sfumato viewer should ask how the artist has used shading to coax this figure into volumetric lines marks and traces and to what end? form. He almost completely eliminates What was the artist’s ‘hypothesis of sight” the head and hands, in which personality and what insight has he brought to bear resides. Instead we have only the sleek upon the subject. How accomplished or contours of the female body. The figure, skilled was the hand of the artist and how twisted upon itself, both reveals and successful his project? In a final stage, the conceals. Ingres has paid great attention DRAWING IS A LINE viewer turns to aesthetics, asking how does to the drawing of the figure’s visible breast, AROUND A THINK the drawing make one feel? The answers buttocks and heels, adding, in these to these questions collectively add up to a areas, pressure to the line of contour and basic reading to the drawing. careful shading to enhance the fullness and sculptural and volumetric feeling In the rest of this article several drawings of these forms. Their roundness offers a will be briefly examined according to the rhythmic resistance at regular intervals ” questions outlined above. down the long undulating line of her back and leg as it curves across the paper. These STUDY FOR ‘LA GRANDE-ODALISQUE’ voluptuous forms are so lifelike as to be Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was graspable by the hand and suggest touch a French artist of the nineteenth century and texture while the simplified contour of whose drawing practice followed the the back and legs are visually enticing as a tradition of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts graceful series of lines. in Paris where he had been trained. He would begin with a series of quick Though Ingres’ anatomy is wrong pen-and-ink sketches that were followed - it has been said that a back this long with a combination of life studies of the must be possessed of two extra vertebrae - model for individual figures and detailed it is deliberately so. It seems that his studies of archaeological furnishings ‘hypothesis of sight’ puts forward an exotic but tactile form, impossibly long category of non-finito. It is open-ended in left, he articulates the crumpled folds in and turning, to convey the figure’s languid construction with a free and spontaneous the leather without outlining the boots beauty, and which the contemporary critic character. Two men have paused in the themselves. The viewer must imagine the Théophile Gautier termed ‘delicious’ street and are engaged in conversation. edges, or contours of these objects. As when he first saw the painting of the The figure on the left is perhaps in a Roger Fry wrote in 1916, ‘He seems almost Grand Odalisque in 1855. We know when Russian costume and the one on the right to dread the contour, to prefer to make something is delicious only if we have is indeterminate, but neither would be strokes either inside or outside of it, and tasted it. It seems that Ingres presented unusual on the streets of the international to trust to the imagination to discover its this form for the viewer’s consumption, city of Amsterdam in the 1640’s where whereabouts, anything rather than a final which the viewer ‘devours’ with his eyes Rembrandt lived and worked. definite statement which would arrest the and imagined sense of touch. It is a interplay of places.’ sensual evocation of an impossible There is breathtaking economy in the body that seduces the viewer through way the artist uses line, or the absence The chosen media is very important to the responses of his own corporeal of line to construct his drawing. For the look and character of this drawing. and sensory apparatus. example, with the figure on the right, Rembrandt’s preferred drawing instrument Rembrandt brilliantly allows the plane of was always the pen and here he has TWO MEN IN DISCUSSION space between the two figures to act as used two types of pens, the quill and the Rembrandt’s vibrant pen and ink drawing the edge, or contour, of the man’s lower reed, together with brown ink on a white of two figures clearly belongs to the cloak. For the boots of the figure on the 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. in drawing the anatomy; the outline of artist to teach himself, but it also resides The reason for his signature is not known the right breast has been reinforced in his distinctive use of the medium to but may indicate that Rembrandt made a several times and appears rather too create atmosphere and sensuality in the gift of this image. It also signifies that even angular, while the hands and feet remain depiction of the female form. He heightens though it is non-finito in style, the artist unfinished. Even though this is indicative the viewer’s awareness of the softness and considered it as finished in its present state. of a student drawing, Seurat still shows sensuality of the figure. He surrounds the brilliance, creating an atmosphere of deep form with an atmosphere that envelopes SEURAT’S FEMALE NUDE and velvety shade from which the figure her even further in a mysterious, velvety Chiaroscuro modeling is generally a emerges and which would become a womblike darkness. The form becomes the strategy of the finito style that may end up signature of his work in the 1880s. essence of something essentially feminine, as a highly finished presentation drawing, enclosed and mysterious. such as Michelangelo’s Dream (Il Sogno), Here Seurat uses a warm black crayon in Many more things may be described and also on view in this exhibition. In this tandem with a stump impregnated with discussed in these drawings. This essay is instance, however, Seurat has employed pencil to get the deepest, velvety blacks only a small beginning. The meaning of the the use of chiaroscuro in an academic that the medium can provide. The paper mark upon the page depends not only on exercise. The young artist, of about has a strong ‘tooth’ that catches particles the artist who has made it but also upon 20, appears to have made this drawing of the conté crayon as it is dragged across the viewer who brings his or her whole between 1879-81, at one of Paris’ open the paper surface creating a granulated life to a reading of the drawing. Defining studios while he was still a student at the surface of tiny dots of black surrounded by the drawing for oneself, and asking Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He may have wanted white. The areas around the model’s breast questions such as why and how the artist to practice drawing the female nude, with and groin have been stumped to eliminate arrived at this ‘hypothesis of sight’ can which he had little or no instruction at the the white spaces and create pools of lead to knowledge, and pleasure, in many academy. impenetrable shade. directions. He begins with a line drawing that he There are no hard contour lines here. The places at the centre of the sheet, in a Left: model’s soft and curved form emerges out Rembrandt van Rijn conventional full-length format. He then from and melts into the deep sfumato (or Two men in discussion translates the form into a chiaroscuro smoke) surrounding her. Her skin derives 1641 drawing done with conté crayon using its shimmering texture from the interaction Quill and reed pen in brown ink, with corrections in techniques to accentuate the figure’s of the crayon with the textured paper. white bodycolour curves, such as stumping and shading on The lines convey an extraordinary sense Right: the body and background, which were of energy while the lights and shadows Georges Seurat Female Nude common amongst his student peers. project a softness and sensuality. The Around 1879–81 He seems to have had some difficulties meaning of this drawing is certainly for the Black Conté crayon over stumped graphite 3: DRAWING IN THE MASTER’S STUDIO: Between tradition and innovation

THE USE OF DRAWINGS AS PART OF During the late fourteenth century, artists THE TYPICAL PRACTICE OF A MASTER began to use paper more and more to explore their ideas for the design of In the Craftsman’s Handbook (Il Libro paintings and sculptures. This exploratory dell’Arte) written between the fourteenth type of drawing offers a vivid and intimate and the fifteenth century, the painter glimpse of the artist creatively thinking on Cennino Cennini described drawing as the paper. foundation and starting point for the art of painting, advising his readers: An example of this creative process is “Do not fail, as you go on, to draw found in Leonardo’s sheet of Studies something every day, for no matter how for Saint Mary Magdalene c. 1480-82 on little it is, it will be well worth while, and display in the Courtauld exhibit. When it will do you a world of good.” Leonardo made this drawing the depiction of Mary Magdalene, with the jar of Cennini’s handbook was the first in-depth, ointment she brought to Christ’s tomb on practical manual in the history of art the morning of his resurrection, was well that described the basic techniques and established. What Leonardo does that is recipes needed by an artist to learn his novel is to turn the figure and her symbol craft. Cennini provided information from into a moment in a dramatic narrative. the grinding of pigments to advice for Leonardo sketches the figure twice. In creating large murals. His book contains both images Mary Magdalene is opening recipes for mixing paint that differentiate the ointment jar she holds in her hand between country and city chickens. Cennini when something outside of the picture counselled that when mixing tempera causes her to turn suddenly in a graceful paint for the face of a young person or a contrapposto movement. Leonardo first fair women the student should ‘use the sketched the Magdalene looking off to the yolks of eggs that come from a city hen, left side of the picture. He then sketched because they have lighter yolks than those a rectangle around the figure, thinking, of country hens.” perhaps, about how the composition would fit on a panel. Next, he reconfigures his The practices he outlines, including sketch, rotating the figure and bringing the drawing, were taught in a master artist’s Magdalene’s gaze to rest on the viewer of workshop. This functioned like an art the drawing, in effect making that viewer school that not only trained students but the one who disturbs her. This adds to produced works on commission and for the impact of the drawing, involving the sale. viewer in the dramatic narrative. Is this the moment that she is surprised out of In the sixteenth century, Giorgio Vasari, her sorrow by suddenly seeing the risen author of The Lives of the most eminent Christ? And if so, is the viewer standing Painters, Sculptors and Architects (Le in his place? In the fifteenth century the Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori et cult of Mary Magdalene was very strong architettori, Florence, 1550 and 1568) in Florence. Leonardo’s composition of echoed Cennini’s emphasis on ‘disegno’ as the Magdalene would have provided a the father of all visual arts emphasizing the powerful and dramatic devotional image necessity of extensive study and training in of this popular saint. This sketch reveals an drawing. In the succeeding centuries more early step in the creation of a finished work. formal academies came to replace the Above: workshop method of training artists, but in In the next steps of the creative process, Leonardo da Vinci Studies for Saint Mary Magdalene the midst of many changes the primacy of artists might refine the pose of a figure Around 1480–82 drawing was never questioned from a live model. The earliest such extant Pen and brown ink studies date from the first years of the Broadly speaking, drawings can be divided fifteenth century. By the eighteenth century into two main categories according to the workshop had been replaced by the DRAWINGS IN THE MASTERS STUDIO their function: those that are made in academy as the place where an artist Written by Anita V. Sganzerla preparation for works of art in other media learned his craft. - most commonly paintings, sculptures and CURRICULUM LINKS: KS3/4+ prints - and those that are produced as Charles-Joseph Natoire’s Life Class at the Art and Design, Art History, History and independent works of art in their own right. Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture 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. Above: There is an amusing irony in noting that Charles-Joseph Natoire Natoire used his imagination in making this The Life Class at the Royal Academy of Painting and drawing of a life drawing class, since it is Sculpture 1746 known that the works of art that decorate Pen, black and brown ink, grey wash and watercolour the walls were not all to be found in the 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 formed between artist and engraver; composition. He employed fine black chalk a noteworthy case is the collaboration lines for the outlines and detailing of the between Raphael and the engraver figures and setting, and skilfully applied Marcantonio Raimondi in Rome that grey watercolour to achieve an atmospheric resulted in the creation of such successful chiaroscuro effect, to be mirrored by the prints as the highly dramatic Massacre of colouristic effects of the final painting. the Innocents (c. 1510-1514), engraving and Raphael’s studies (1860-4). As a result of Working more independently and outside their nature as a collaborative enterprise, the ties of a specific commission, the prints often bear the names of the artist nineteenth-century French artist Eugène who conceived the original design, of the Delacroix drew a sheet with two studies cutter of the plate, and of the publisher of a female figure in 1847 and it was not of the print. Various methods can be used until two years later that he used one of to transfer a design to a metal plate or them, the one on the left, as a model for other surface. Often if a drawing has been the female nude in his painting Le Lever used to transfer its lines onto another (1849-50, Private Collection). The poses of surface – be it another sheet of paper or a the standing female nude arranging her plate – signs of incisions will be detectable hair are almost identical in the drawn and by pointing strong raking light onto painted versions. The graphite drawing the surface of the paper. Pieter Bruegel shows Delacroix studying the woman’s pose the Elder’s Kermis at Hoboken (1559), a with both her arms raised and surrounding delicate pen and brown ink drawing, for her head so that her hands meet on one instance, presents signs of how the sheet observation of details and figures, to side in an intricate and naturally elegant was prepared for transfer: the outlines the study of the entire picture including pose. Delacroix used parallel hatching to are incised and traces of charcoal are characters and setting. Arguably the most create soft shading on the side of the figure detectable over the ink lines. Several of finished type of preliminary study is the and to model her sensuous forms. In the Bruegel’s works deal with peasant life and so-called cartoon, or cartone: a preparatory drawing, the woman’s nudity is in no way traditions and having a print of this subject drawing as large as the final work and veiled by her long voluptuous hair, as does made allowed for his name to be linked made to be easily transferred onto the final occur in the painting. The foreshortening more closely to these themes, possibly also support. Cartoons were most commonly of the bent right arm appears more fully attracting new potential patrons. used for frescoes, but evidence exists of worked out in the painting, where it is them being used for paintings as well. raised at a slightly higher angle, covering Finally deserving some consideration For his large fresco entitled The School of more of the woman’s face. In the painting are those drawing activities that can be Athens, in the Vatican Stanze (The Vatican, she is clearly shown in the act of combing connected to the assistants and pupils who Rome), Raphael executed a series of her golden locks. were active in most master’s workshops. cartoons that were then pricked for transfer. This group includes copies after works by Aside from their importance in the making the master as well as workshop materials A later example of a preparatory drawing of paintings and sculptures, drawings also such as pattern book drawings (Middles is to be found in the oeuvre of the played a vital role in the design of prints. Ages) and costume prints (Renaissance eighteenth-century painter Francesco Ever since the diffusion of printmaking as and early modern). The use and re-use Solimena, whose works of sacred and an art form, artists began to exploit the historical subjects were highly praised power of the printed matter in showcasing inside and outside of Italy. Solimena their inventions by allowing them to Top: employed carefully planned preparatory reach a far wider public than previously Eugène Delacroix studies for his paintings. The Courtauld possible. While some painters were also Sheet with two studies of a Female Nude holds a drawing relating to his painting printmakers, a case in point is the German 1847 Graphite entitled Deborah and Barach, of which he master Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), many executed two versions for two different others supplied professional engravers or left: patrons. The Courtauld sheet is closer woodcutters – carefully selected for their Peter Paul Rubens to the version of the painting now in expertise – with more or less detailed Head of the Farnese Hercules Around 1608–10 the Galleria Sabauda in Turin, Italy. Here designs to be turned into prints. True Black chalk, heightened with white chalk, on grey Solimena used a wide landscape format business enterprises were sometimes 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 the ring she is wearing on her right hand. workshop material was common practice The ring is not shown in the Courtauld already in the Middle Ages, where pattern drawing, demonstrating that this detail of books were kept as a convenient source of primary importance was misinterpreted depictions of animals, plants and unusual by our draughtsman. Moreover, the whole subjects, which may have been difficult to composition follows an underlying black draw from life. Moreover, the workshop chalk tracing, a clear sign that it was based master’s most successful inventions were on a pre-existing model. In terms of its often copied and incorporated in works of function, given its exceptional state of art produced in the workshop. One such conservation, the Courtauld sheet could case is the beautiful pen and ink drawing not have been used as a workshop tool, on green prepared paper showing a seated and is more likely to have been a collector female saint (c. 1475-85) attributed to the item. workshop of the Flemmish painter Hugo van der Goes. Works on paper were in fact also executed as independent works of art, and served Only a small number of drawings have to showcase the master’s skills and survived by Van der Goes, whose inventiveness. A wonderful early example contribution to the art of drawing consisted of such a drawing is Michelangelo’s in developing a new technique for drawing The Dream (c. 1533), which was probably in chiaroscuro. This was imitated by a intended as a gift. Indeed, finished number of his followers, including the drawings conceived to please the draughtsman of the Courtauld sheet. collector’s eye and taste are present in all Technical and iconographical clues prove historical periods, but it was only around that this is the work of a copyist and that 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 multi- purpose 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 Top: outlines and the white heightening are Pieter Bruegel the Elder Kermis at Hoboken rigid and quite formulaic - if compared to 1559 Van der Goes’ own drawing style - while the Pen and brown ink, contours incised for transfer iconography is missing its focal point. The left: figure is meant to be Saint Catherine who, Workshop of Hugo van der Goes in a dream, was given a ring by the Christ A Seated Female Saint child as a symbol of their mystic marriage; Around 1475–85 Pen, point of the brush and grey ink, heightened therefore the peculiar gesture of her hand with white bodycolour over preliminary black chalk would be explained by the act of touching underdrawing, on green prepared paper 4: DRAWING THE LINE: Where does drawing end and painting begin?

‘But drawing is of a vast compass. Spontaneous or restrained; intellectual Pedantic or superficial, calm or or instinctual; harsh or soft; delicate, compulsive, the linear fragment and the ugly, intimate, gestural, fragmentary, well-rounded plastic representation have economical, poetic ... these are just some always meant one thing: passionate of the adjectives attached to drawing in the personal expression. Within the range wealth of specialist literature. Within the of media the artist has had perfect field, the technical and stylistic distinctions freedom: hence the kaleidoscopic are thrillingly intricate, but often far from variety of drawing. In its limitation lies distinct: lines are variously firm or loose, its worth: in the fragmentary, perhaps continuous or broken; tone is achieved isolated life of its forms lies its charm.’ by means of textured crosshatching, Joseph Meder, 1919. monochrome washes, bodycolour, watercolour, and often merely by varying It is likely that our response to the ‘vast densities of line. Equally, amongst the compass’ of the art called drawing on astonishing array of tools, there is no show in the current exhibition will largely categorical rule which restricts their use agree with the words of the director of to drawing. The medium itself can be wet Vienna’s Albertina collection from the early or dry; brushes are not restricted to the twentieth century. If asked to differentiate practice we call painting, and a ‘stump’ between this medium and that of painting, of rolled paper acts as a brush for the however, the modern audience will almost smoothing of dry charcoal applications. To certainly not be much concerned with a greater or lesser degree, all of these can the distinctions between ‘High’ and ‘Low’ be applied in either mode, not to mention art – the traditional divide against which the creative crossover between ‘painterly’ background Joseph Meder’s exemplary chiaroscuro drawings, or paintings whose scholarship had been formed. As if to outlines could almost be cut with a knife. reinforce this development, we have the example of the spectacular price fetched Perhaps all we can say with certainty on the recently by Edvard Munch’s pastel work relation of drawing to painting is that there The Scream, referred to in the press is no clear division. With this proviso clearly alternately as painting, or as drawing. stated, this essay will consider the validity Questioning changing attitudes to of some of the distinctions traditionally matters of categorisation that once made between the two processes, with placed drawings on the lower rungs of a a focus on three main attributes that ladder leading from artistic aspiration to can be identified broadly as concerning professional achievement, this essay asks psychological, formal and temporal how far historical arguments influence qualities. In the analysis, the interest of today’s appreciation of the ‘kaleidoscopic each turns out to lie more in a historical variety’ on display. understanding than in their use as definitive test cases; a fact which by no means Long recognised as the vital skeleton diminishes the multiple insights the offer. supporting artistic production, for many centuries in Europe the drawing held a • INTIMACY – the capacity to reveal discreet position in relation to the ‘fleshier’ insights into personality and artistic arts of painting, sculpture and architecture. development, along a trajectory from It was not until the early nineteenth century private study to public display. that works on paper began to draw full attention for their insights into the work of • LINEAR FORM – in its contrast to old masters. Coinciding with an increased painting’s concern with surface treatment, sophistication in reproductive print this deceptive category is the subject of techniques that served a wider audience of an enduring historical debate that is as the industrial age, the notion of a drawing complex as it is intriguing. as a work of independent merit began to take hold. The public institution of the • SPONTANEITY – integral to the character prints and drawings collection, combining of the sketch, increasing in significance with educational and democratic aims with the development of modern concerns with those of the connoisseur, dates from this the dynamic pace of life. era. 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 deeply devotional personality, but for the What has never been in dispute is drawing’s artist himself purely representing a detail position at the heart of the artistic process, study for his Heller Altarpiece. where it can be seen to fulfil two functions; one for the benefit of the artist and one for THE LIMITS OF FORM the viewer. First of these provides evidence The origins of the most enduring paradigm of practice on the path to artistic maturity, in the debate on the comparative merits in the form of rapid studies, records of of painting and drawing also date from the observation, or formal designs. The Picasso Renaissance, when issues surrounding the sketch in this exhibition belongs in this professional status of the artist coincided category, revealing a transitional moment with a revival of the ancient Humanist in the oeuvre of an artist whom we might struggles for supremacy between the arts imagine made these steps almost without and philosophy. As a subdivision of this trying, yet who clearly delighted in lifelong contest, Renaissance theorists such as experiment. Turning to the earlier period, Vasari and Frederico Zuccaro argued for Dürer’s ambitious drawing of the Wise the artistic root of form – or ‘disegno’ – as Virgin, with the tentative anatomical studies proceeding directly from the intellect. of his own leg on the verso, offers similar ‘Colorito’, by contrast, was considered a insights, as do the Leonardo studies of material element appealing to the senses. Mary Magdalene, where he is seen to be It is important to note that these divisions developing a new angle on the traditional were applied principally within the context narrative. Just as important for today’s of the painting, as was the case in mid- audience, however, is the second function seventeenth century Paris when members of these works; namely the glimpse that of the academy discussed the relative they afford us into the workings of a mind merits of Poussin’s mastery of line or the operating more than five hundred years primacy of colour in Rubens. ago. Such thrilling encounters with the artist’s ‘hand’ explain much of the appeal of In his specific focus on drawing as the these works, regarded as a direct conduit pinnacle of Classical Greek art, the to the hidden personality behind the more eighteenth-century German art historian public creations. Johann Winckelmann set an even stricter moral tone that equated formal restraint These qualities might once have been with the ideal of beauty: ‘But, among employed as clear dividers between the the Greeks, the art of drawing resembles private nature of drawing and the public a river whose waters flow in numerous face of a finished painting. However, windings through a fertile vale, and fill its there are also plenty of highly finished channel, yet do not overflow’. His view of works unconnected to any known painting later Antiquity as a period of descent into or sculpture, such as is the case with decadence and decay was to have lasting Pinturicchio’s consummately graceful influence, and it may come as no surprise angel, to name but one example conceived that there was an attendant tendency to 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 Image: from being an instrument of form to one Albrecht Dürer of temperament. It could also be seen Wise Virgin 1493 as a new dialogue between making and Pen and ink viewing. Not only are whole exhibitions This drawing will not be included in The Courtauld dedicated to these preparatory fragments exhibition but will be part of The Frick exhibition today, but an extension of this is that October 2, 2012, until January 27, 2013 individual drawings themselves can become so familiar through reproduction DRAWING THE LINE that we hardly question their original Written by Niccola Shearman ephemerality. In this connection, Meder comments on the popular status of the CURRICULUM LINKS: KS4+ famous Dürer drawing of ‘hands in prayer’, Art and Design, Art History, History and prized in modern times as evidence of a other humanities equate line with masculinity and colour with the whole world’. Comparing the drawing individual volumes of fruit, bottle and chair- femininity. When during the Napoleonic to poetry and painting to the novel in this back and themselves are augmented by occupation the German Romantics made respect, he appropriated the argument radiating areas of white space. The colour the same associations of line with intellect of the Enlightenment thinker G E Lessing, is at once animated by these contours and over the sensual qualities of the more lavish and added to a growing code of correct in its sensuous spread appears to break oil painting, they appealed successfully to materials which was to become a central their bounds. nationalist sensibilities in promoting the tenet of modernist theory until the middle rapid rise of ‘Papierkultur’. And Goethe, of the twentieth century. Despite a new fluidity, the binary division although a serious colour theorist, yet of linear and painterly had nonetheless made the same distinction between sense WHERE LINE MEETS COLOUR developed by the early twentieth impression and soul: ‘The pleasure in Written for an amateur audience in century into one of five major reference colour is experienced by the organ of the the arts & crafts spirit of equality, John points of Heinrich Wölfflin’s influential eye, which communicates it to the rest of Ruskin’s Elements of Drawing of 1857 Principles of Art History (1913). With a the person. The pleasure in form lies in the advocates copious practice with a ‘pointed thesis of limits and limitlessness, the person’s higher nature and the inner person instrument’ before embarking on the more argument in this history of style attaches communicates this to the eye’. difficult handling of colour. Championing to all forms of visual art, each of which the art of Turner here as in his major work follows a developmental path from linear If thus far the argument is largely a On Modern Painters, Ruskin sets out characteristics of the early Renaissance conceptual one, and as such a product to contradict an opinion that held the to the painterly quality of the age of of a typical rationalisation process, do master could not draw, demonstrating the Rembrandt. While Wölfflin too is attracted these distinctions carry more material importance of line ‘even to a painter whose by definitions according to soul and senses, weight when applied by practising artists? chief value and skill seemed, in his finished he avoids presenting the transition as a Probably not in the case of the German works, to consist in losing it’. While outline matter of ‘descent’, and instead sees the sculptor and prolific print-maker Max may be artificial in nature, he tells us, it is development as ‘a decisive readjustment Klinger, whose polemic on Painting and an essential basis for a work of art - as we of the eye’, from seeing in lines to seeing Drawing (1891) was predicated on the need might agree in relation to Turner’s view of in masses. to retain the hard-won status of drawing. Colchester, itself a preparatory work for a In contrast to the real-life associations series of line engravings. Wölfflin’s categorisation according to the of colour, he claimed, the proliferation senses of touch and of sight, in which he of linear art in print-making had helped Ruskin’s eloquent description of applies a tactile value to the early period, to reveal both the liberating and the watercolour as the medium of ‘the quiet and an optical one to the later, is typical often unsettling effects of drawing, which boundary’ highlights its position on the of his approach to boundaries that can be conveyed a deeper sense of ‘the awfulness border between drawing and painting. both intricately defined and yet far from of existence’. Key to this was the outline, According to the expert Joseph Meder, the fixed. Thus in the style of Dürer he too isolating forms in the service of an idea, point at which they merge comes ‘when a observes the outlining function of a line and being more suited to the developing subject is developed beyond the isolated that isolates objects one from another. taste for fantasy-narratives and social elements of line and empty space until the In the case of the Wise Virgin, this might critique. Again the argument privileges preparation is eliminated and the support apply to the continuous contour of the the imagination, which is exercised by the fully covered, revealing no visible edges’. face, the individually delineated strands of need to fill in details which in colour might In this context, Cezanne’s still life presents hair or even the clear edges of the folds be overwhelming. Thus Klinger praises us with a perfect example of the interaction of cloth, whereby ‘the eye is led along the the ‘passionate economy’ of Goya, for of ‘edge’ and surface covering, where the boundaries and induced to feel along the whom, ‘The almost empty background is generous preparatory lines both isolate 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 In conclusion, we might take the case of This exhibition leaves us with little doubt past. Even Gainsborough, who regarded Henri Matisse as an example of an artist that those same virtues singled out by drawing as a relief from the pressures of whose fluent negotiation of the borders Joseph Meder continue to influence portrait painting, was praised in his own between painting and drawing serves the appeal of drawings as fragments of time precisely for the speed and ease with both to highlight and, importantly, to ‘passionate personal expression’, whose which he appeared to work with the pencil, complicate, many of the features isolated in charm lies so often in their limits. However, whereas this same virtue would be seen as this essay. If his Notes of a Painter of 1908 in the light of the long struggle for pre- a failing in the laborious art of oils. By the reveal his primary devotion to colour, this eminence surveyed here, Matisse gives us time we come to Edgar Degas, the fluid is by no means contradicted by utterances the clearest indication that in the mind of employment of the pastel is fundamental made thirty years later, to the effect that, the artist there are no divisions. Instead, the to the articulation of movement, whether ‘My line drawing is the purest and most tension between line as a limit of space, applied in scenes from the dance or, as direct translation of my emotion’. On the and colour as surface quantity, is itself an in our drawing, in the apparent stillness contrary, the Notes of a Painter on Drawing inseparable part of the creative process: of a shop, where the pivotal twist of the (1939) suggest that even these sparest ‘On a painted surface I render space to woman’s body contains all the animation of works, apparently embodying all the the sense of sight: I make of it a colour necessary for a moment in time. freedom and spontaneity associated with limited by a drawing. When I use paint, I drawing, cannot definitively be separated have a feeling of quantity ... and I modify its By contrast, actual speed of execution is from the art of painting. For not only contour in order to determine my feeling often an attribute imposed by the viewer. In does he refer to the modelling of black clearly in a definitive way. (Let’s call the first the case of van Gogh, the accounts of his line on white paper in language that action ‘to paint’ and the second ‘to draw’.) trips into the fields around Arles suggest evokes the act of painting, where there In my case, to paint and to draw are one’. an impulsive urge to record the rapid onset are relationships but no edges, but also of spring. However, the addition to the that of drawing, where the white paper preliminary plein-air sketch of finer detail retains its operative role. Moreover, he in the decorative Japanese style indicates reveals how far these have been worked that the artist invested considerable time up in a series of careful charcoal studies back in the studio in order to develop the which he compares to the ‘limbering up’ work into a finished picture. Meanwhile, exercises of a dancer preparing for public van Gogh’s own mastery of movement expression. The Courtauld drawing dates Left: is employed with elegant restraint in the Joseph Mallord William Turner from a period where Matisse was limbering graphic medium, where the gentle stirrings Dawn after the Wreck up to the flowing arabesques that were to in earth and air are conveyed by sparse Around 1841 become the signature of the late drawings, Watercolour, bodycolour, and touches of red means of contrast between the empty and in this respect, it reinforces the artist’s chalk with some rubbing out and scraping stretches of white paper bisected by calm own insights into the deceptive nature of horizontals, and brisk directional elements right: drawing’s much- vaunted spontaneity. that enliven the new growth amidst the Henri Matisse Seated Woman ploughed field and the waving branches in 1919 bud. 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 A Fabriano paper mould with examples of wire MAKING PAPER in central Italy, where conditions were watermark designs. The manufacture of paper was a highly favourable due to plentiful water, windmills skilled, specialised profession. Until around which were converted to paper mills and The invention of the moveable-type 1850, the majority of paper was made an abundant supply of raw materials from printing press in Germany around 1450 from rags. The finest, whitest paper was the local textile industry. By 1330 Fabriano and its introduction to other parts of produced from linen, lesser quality paper was the leading European centre of the Europe radically changed how paper was from cotton, hemp, wool or silk. Rags were paper industry. Nevertheless, it was many used. The printing press facilitated swift carefully sorted according to fibre type, years before paper was widely used. For communication to a newly emergent, colour, cleanliness and condition. Once a long time paper was considered inferior literate middle class that could not separated, the rags were cut up, cleaned, to the animal skin parchment used for otherwise afford manuscripts. A printed fermented and beaten to break the cloth manuscripts, and too fragile for legal edition of some 250 books could be down into fibres calledstuff . These fibres documents. Due to low manufacturing produced more quickly, accurately and were then mixed with water in a vat to form output throughout the fifteenth century, cheaply than a single copy of the same paper pulp. Paper sheets were formed by paper in Europe remained expensive and text handwritten on parchment. As the dipping a mould and deckle into the difficult for draughtsmen to obtain. Most demand for prints after religious subjects vat of pulp. surviving drawings from this period were and famous paintings increased, so too did preserved because of their function in the demand for paper. Paper gradually rose The mould consisted of a rectangular frame the workshop or for formal, contractual in quality and decreased in price. Fifteenth- with a lattice-like screen of closely laid purposes. century, good quality rag paper cost only copper wires stretched horizontally, held one sixth the price of parchment, but it was together by evenly spaced vertical chain wires. These laid and chain wires left an MAKING PAPER still a significant expense for an artist. imprint on the paper that gave the surface Written by Amanda Saroff with thanks to a ribbed appearance when held to the Stephanie Buck and Katharine Lockett The gradual increase in the availability of paper had an enormous impact on light, hence the name laid paper. the drawing practices of Renaissance CURRICULUM LINKS: KS3/4+ draughtsmen. The model book stock of The rectangular frame placed underneath Art and Design, Art History, History and motifs was complemented by sheets of the mould, called the deckle, kept the pulp other humanities as well as technology rapidly recorded observations or variously on the mould as it was dipped into the vat. based arts. worked out solutions to problems of form. The mould and deckle were moved back Images of Fabriano mould and paper © Museo della Often artists used the same sheet for and forth in the vat, before being lifted Carta e della Filigrana, Fabriano, Italy. multiple sketches. 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. 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, Jost Amman woodcut of paper being made by hand backing or framing. c.1568. Curators and conservators take great ropes in ventilated drying lofts. Once dry, care to maintain conservation standards the paper was coated with gelatin; this with temperature and humidity controlled process was known as sizing. exhibition spaces, low light levels and good quality mounting and framing. They Paper, as we know it today, is mostly balance the preservation of these precious produced from bleached wood pulp and works of art for posterity with their display is a cheap, mass produced material. Rag for public study and delight. 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 Katharine Lockett from The Courtauld Gallery cleans used by manufacturers as a form of 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

CURRICULUM LINKS: KS3+ 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 The outside is blank. We know there is a THE IMPRESSION IS ONE impression that he is standing on water, view beyond the windows — perhaps trees, partly evoked by the liquid application of bushes, buildings, sky — but the drawing OF EMPTINESS — THE the ink (which is simply dark water). The only shows the white of the light, not the sense of his remove or detachment from scene beyond. PEOPLE REALLY HAVE the scene reminds me of certain dreams GONE. HE IS ALONE, where my surroundings appear like an The boy’s black uniform is punctuated apparition, just beyond my touch. by five slits of white: at the bottom of his AND THAT’S HOW HE buttoned jacket, on his cuffs and collar, REMEMBERED THE The room is fluid, the boy more solid, and the light reflecting off his shoe, and a thin the whole image is filled with light. Light band of light at the sole of his shoe, before SCENE floods through the windows, creating dark his reflection on the floor begins. Each of shadows in the curtains and on the bars of these patches of white are where I left the the gym apparatus, and light bounces off paper exposed. If they had been inked the floor. While there is a diagonal shadow over, the small standing figure would have cast on the wall behind the boy, what we lost its form — it would have flattened to a see on the floor is a reflection (of the boy silhouette. ”The black ink of the text relates visually to and the apparatus), not a shadow. The the ink of the drawing. The boy’s words reflection of the boy is as dark as his black In his words, the boy states that he was are printed in Courier font (to imitate a suit. ‘right in the middle’ of the gym. When I took the photos, that’s where he stood, but typewriter) on the same cartridge paper as the drawing. If I were to do the piece again, He stands stiffly, perhaps ill at ease, and when it came to composing the drawing, I I would typewrite the text. The physical looks exposed in the vast-seeming hall. We placed him to the right, for an asymmetric marks of the typewritten word would have get a sense of his character from his pose composition. His words give a sense of been a good complement to the stroke / — he is young, not tall, with short cropped the space around him, including the space caress of brushed ink. With ink-jet printing hair, and has a serious demeanour. He is where the viewer is — we are in the gym — unless the printer is damaged — there a boy in formal uniform, in an institutional with him. In the game of hide and seek that is no variation in the value of the black ink: setting, yet he is remembering a personal the teacher had tricked him into playing, all the letters are precise, repeated, and of scene. The drawing is about representing we could be one of the children hiding the same blackness. A typewriter is closer something of his interior world, rather than around the boy, waiting for him to open to the hand, each letter an extension of the the outward appearance of the school his eyes. However, the impression is one of finger that punches the key. The qualities environment and a student in school emptiness — the people really have gone. of blackness and of impact vary, according uniform. He is alone, and that’s how he remembered the scene. to how hard the key is punched, and to the individual characteristics of the machine — I placed the boy’s head about half way up each letter will be fractionally different. from the bottom of the floor to the top The drawing floats on the paper as the boy of the ceiling. The expanse of floor adds does in the room. The white light in the The drawings and accompanying texts interest to the composition: the drawing drawing extends into the white light of the were first exhibited at Whitechapel Gallery becomes about space — the plane of the page. If the white in the image had been without frames, lightly attached to a white floor around him, and the light and air made with paint (for example gouache), wall. For Raine’s Foundation the drawings surrounding him. However, the floor isn’t an it would be differentiated from the white were placed in picture mounts and frames inviting surface to walk across — he seems paper. The white of a page is beautiful, — a necessary protective for hanging them frozen still. unlike the machine-bleached white of a pre-primed canvas. With canvas, painters in the school. There was a rawness to the Inessential details are lost: the lines painted talk of the need to ‘kill the white’ — to put loose presentation of the drawings and on the gym floor, the fire exit sign, the down a layer of paint all over the surface texts placed directly on the wall, which strip-lights above (I wanted the scene to before one can proceed. On paper, the I preferred to the framed and mounted be lit only by day light, entering from the surface needs to ‘breathe’. The white would display. It allowed viewers to draw close to top left — an Old Master convention). We be suffocated if too much ink were applied. the image, without the glass intervening. know what gym apparatus looks like, so we know there are ropes, hinges, bars — we Norman Bryson, in Vision and Painting, Although I have a lot to say about the fill these in ourselves. The mattress-like writes of the difference between ‘deictic’ drawing now, many of the complex folded structure on wheels behind the boy (from the Greek deikonei, to show) and decisions were made intuitively. At the provides a compositional device, anchoring ‘erasive’ media . Here the ink is deictic time I was simply focused on completing the figure in the room from the right-hand — it shows the hand of the painter; as in it quickly, and in one sitting (I find it much side. Chinese calligraphy, there is a performative easier to achieve a unity of tone and element. The reflections are clearly whole composition in one go, rather than over The roof slopes upwards from the room’s brush strokes, and one can read the width a series of sessions). For me, speed of far corner, then straightens to a horizontal of the brush used from the thin lines of the execution is important to allow the medium at the top right of the picture (where it bars. If the artist’s hand falters, the record to speak for itself — for the ink to run meets a grid-like window pane). At first is apparent. An erasive medium — like oil and spill and build in layers — rather than this detail of the architecture might not paint — allows the painter to cover his or trying slowly and methodically to control be noticed, instead giving the sense of her tracks, successive layers concealing the it. It also allows chance to enter. How an an unreal perspective, as if the corner layers beneath. individual brush stroke will look, or at what were further from the boy than it actually scale a subject is represented — these If I had chosen to make an oil painting from is. The roof looks like old wood beams are elements I do not preconceive, and the photographs, it would be a different — neither quite parallel nor straight. The yet all contribute to the atmosphere and piece — it would memorialize the room school gym becomes one of memory and individuality of the piece. From start to itself, representing the solid space and imagination, rather than the new-build of finish, the process of drawing is about colours of a tactile environment, rather my photographs. discovering what my mind’s eye sees in a than the black and white blurring of a room given scene — I am only vaguely aware The door at the back is a counterpoint to remembered. On canvas, the edges are of what I want to achieve when I begin the boy. It was made of dark wood, but I more determined: the convention is to fill drawing a picture. What excites me about bleached it out, so that it would not distract the picture all the way to its edges. If an creating art works is that the success of a attention from the figure. In our vision, oil painting were left blank at the sides, given piece can’t be pre-formulated: for things in the distance appear lighter, less it might look unfinished or contrived. In the results to have any lasting resonance focused. The light grey rectangle is just a drawing far more than a painting, we requires a degree of spontaneity. enough to suggest the door’s presence, accept the partial. without unbalancing the picture. 7: GLOSSARY OF TERMS

ARABESQUE over it. Traditionally a ground would with very little tooth. Tooth also refers to a A term used in European art to describe have been gesso for a panel piece or an slightly rough finish that takes ink well. It is a particular kind of decorative motif undercoat of paint on a canvas. a preferred surface texture for charcoal and comprising a flowering or volute pastel art. composition. NON-FINITO An description of a painting, drawing or NOTED HISTORIANS AND WRITERS BODYCOLOUR sculpture literally meaning that the work MENTIONED HEREIN A type of paint consisting of pigment, is unfinished. Non-finito art works appear a binding agent (usually gum arabic) unfinished because the artist choses CENNINO CENNINI and sometimes an added inert material. to it leave it so. This term is used as a c.1370 - c.1440 Designed to be used for an opaque counterpoint to finito Italian painter and writer of The Craftsman’s method. Often called gouache, this PARAGONE Handbook, a seminal work in its time. method can also be referred to as opaque A debate from the Italian Renaissance watercolour. BENEDETTO VARCHI in which one form of art, for example 1502 - 1565 CHIAROSCURO architecture, sculpture or painting, is Italian humanist, historian and poet An Italian term which literally means ‘light- championed as superior to all others. GIORGIO VASARI dark’. In paintings the description refers to PICTURA clear tonal contrasts which are often used 1511 - 1574 A 16th Century Italian term, specifically a An italian painter, writer and historian most to suggest the volume and modelling of Humanist term, defining the art and the the subjects depicted noted for his “Lives of the […] Artist” first style of a painting or drawing. published in 1550 COLORITO PLEIN-AIR HEINRICH WÖLFFLIN A term usually applied to 16th-century Plein Air is the French for open air. The Italian paintings in which colour is 1864 - 1945 term is used to describe the practice Swiss art critic whose classifying principles employed in a dominant manner, for of artists painting or drawing before a sensual expressive purposes and as an were influential in the development of landscape or other chosen subject out of formal anaylsis of art important compositional element. doors, rather than in a studio or workshop. CROSS HATCHING SFUMATO ROGER FRY An artistic technique used to create tonal Sfumato is the ‘smoky’ quality which blurs 1866 - 1934 or shading effects by drawing (or painting contours so that figures emerge from a English artist and art critic and a founder of or scribing) closely spaced parallel lines. dark background by means of gradual tonal The Courtauld Institute of Art modulations without any harsh outlines. DISEGNO HENRI MATISSE From the Italian word for drawing or STUMPING 1869 - 1954 design, carries a more complex meaning in A stump is a cylindrical drawing tool, Painter and writer as well as sculptur, art, involving both the ability to make the usually made of soft paper that is tightly draughtsman and printmaker. Perhaps drawing and the intellectual capacity to wound into a stick and sanded to a point at best known as a fauve his influence can be invent the design. both ends. It is used by artists to smudge noted across the 20th Century or blend marks made with charcoal, Conté MARION BLACKETT MILNER ECOLE DES BEAUX ARTS crayon, pencil or other drawing media. By 1900 - 1998 A famous French art school located in its use, gradations and half tones can be A British author and psychoanalyst Paris. The school has a history spanning produced. more than 350 years, training many of the JACQUES DERRIDA great artists in Europe. Beaux Arts style SUPPORT 1930 - 2004 was modelled on classical “antiquities,” The support of a drawing or a painting is French philosopgher, noted for the theory preserving these idealized forms and the object or material on which the work of deconstruction passing the style on to future generations. has been executed. Paintings and drawings have been produced on a number of DEANNA PETHERBRIDGE FINITO different supports, including wooden 1939 - An Italian term used to describe a highly panels, paper, canvas and copper. Different An artist, writer and curator primarily finished drawing, sculpture or painting. supports have to be prepared in different concerned with drawing The term is the counterpoint to non-finito ways before the image can be applied. NORMAN BRYSON GROUND TOOTH 1940 - The ground is a layer used to prepare a The surface feel of paper is its tooth. The A Scottish Art historian of French support for a painting or drawing; its colour more tooth a paper has the rougher it eighteenth-century painting and Harvard and tone can affect the chromatic and tonal feels to the touch. Some inks may adhere University professor values of the paint or wash layers applied poorly to papers that are extremely smooth 8: REGARDE!: QUELLES FEMMES?

De la femme idéalisée dans le portrait Nude de Seurat de 1879-81 ou la Seated d'histoire, à la femme du quotidien faisant Woman de Matisse de 1919 ne font plus sa toilette, les esquisses des maîtres semblant de s’inscrire dans un contexte en France nous donnent un intéressant autre que celui de leur quotidien, et elles aperçu d'une certaine société et de ses sont là, simplement, offertes au regard du restrictions, bousculées au fil du temps. Les spectateur. changements sont notables, et nous font voir en filigrane les dessous de l'Histoire. Mais quelle est la place de la femme dans Pourtant, le sujet de représentation ce monde où artistes, commanditaires principal, la femme, est souvent la grande et spectateurs sont en immense majorité absente du tableau, et la place de celles-ci des hommes? À la fin du XIXème siècle, reste effacée dans un monde largement ce sont en très grande partie les femmes masculin. qui posent sous l’œil attentif des hommes. Bien qu’elles deviennent le centre Commençons notre exploration par d’attention, trop peu de témoignages Watteau. Dans le Satyr Pouring Wine de leur expérience en tant que modèle de 1717, le corps nu est prétexte à la perdurent, et aujourd’hui, nous nous représentation d'une scène à caractère souvenons seulement de ceux qui les ont mythologique. À cette époque en effet, les immortalisées en de gracieuses évocations. seules représentations du corps humain nu Cette absence de reconnaissance sociale, autorisées étaient celles le plaçant dans un qui est même légiféré dans la société contexte soit d’une scène d'histoire, soit française de cette époque, cache pourtant d’une scène mythologique ou religieuse. trop souvent un traitement dur, parfois cruel, réservé aux modèles. Grâce à Alice Comme on peut d'ailleurs le voir Michel et son article intitulé ‘Degas et son représenté dans l'aquarelle de Natoire The Modèle’ publié en 1919 dans le Mercure de Life Class at the Royal Academy of Painting France, on voit comment Pauline, modèle and Sculpture de 1746, tous les artistes du peintre, subit chaque jours la pénibilité de l'Académie se devaient d'apprendre à des poses imposées par l’artiste, souffre représenter le nu en copiant les anciens du froid, de la saleté de l’atelier, et de ou lors de séances avec modèles vivants. l’attitude parfois brutale de Degas à son Cependant, la représentation du nu n’est égard. Le récit de cette femme nous offre pas anodine dans l’art, et a toujours été un nouveau regard sur les représentations sujet à controverse. En effet, le nu doit de nus. Dans Sheet with two Studies of porter des valeurs morales et esthétiques a Female Nude de Delacroix, le modèle masquant le côté érotique du corps, n’a t’elle pas pris froid ? N’a t’elle pas afin d’être accepté par une société qui souffert de crampes terribles ? À quoi condamne fermement la pornographie. pense le modèle de Study for « La Grande Alors que les artistes commencent à Odalisque » de Ingres de 1814? Redoute- représenter des nus qui s’éloignent de plus t-elle de possibles violences que le peintre en plus des représentations inscrites dans pourrait commettre sur elle si elle ne un cadre formel, tel La Toilette de Manet parvenait pas à tenir la pose suffisamment de 1860, le Salon renforce la censure, et longtemps? les artistes qui s’en voient refuser l’accès sont obligés de trouver une alternative: ils La femme, objet de contemplation de créent et exposent leurs œuvres au Salon l’homme artiste, commanditaire ou simple des Refusés. spectateur reste donc dans l’histoire comme un objet silencieux, gracieusement Au début de la Troisième République, avec offert aux regards. Les contemplerions- le démantèlement du bureau de la censure nous de la même manière si nous pouvions du Salon en 1880 facilitant la circulation entendre ce que ces femmes ont à nous d’images de nus, la représentation de la dire ? nudité dans le contexte du quotidien se REGARDE! Quelles femmes? généralise. Alors que la femme alanguie Written by Marie Sautin. dans Study for « La Grande Odalisque » de Ingres de 1814 se justifie dans CURRICULUM LINKS: KS3&KS4+ un imaginaire orientalisant, la Female 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 de- scriptions 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 témérai- res 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 représenta- tion 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 générale- ment, 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 ? Ces questionnements et analyses peuvent mener les élèves à faire des recherches sur Left top: Olympe de Gouge (1748-1793), Eugénie Jean-Antoine Watteau Niboyet (1796-1883), ou encore Suzanne Satyr Pouring Wine Valadon (1865-1938), figures féministes 1717 importantes, contemporaines de la période Black, red and white chalk Above: de l’exposition. De plus, parler du combat Left bottom: Charles-Joseph Natoire de ces femmes permettrait aux élèves Right: The Life Class at the Royal Academy of Painting and de faire le lien avec les périodes d’après- Georges Seurat Sculpture guerres, jusqu’à la société d’aujourd’hui, Female Nude 1746 Around 1879–81 Pen, black and brown ink, grey wash and watercolour afin de comparer la position des femmes Black Conté crayon over stumped graphite over black chalk dans l’histoire en France. REGARDE!: WHICH WOMEN?

FULL ENGLISH TRANSLATION

From idealised women in historical sponsors and viewers are men? At the end ACTIVITIES: paintings to the women washing in their of the 19th century, the female form was everyday lives, sketches from French the central subject of art and while some BODY PARTS AND DAILY ROUTINE masters give us an interesting viewpoint models may have become the main focus, Intended for KS3 of a society and its restrictions, disrupted too few testimonies of their experiences over time. The changes are significant and remain. Today we only remember the While looking at the drawings, describe the enable us to see the ornate underbelly of men who have immortalised them. different body parts. These descriptions history. However, the main subject of the This absence of social recognition, an can be an opportunity to use comparative representations, women, are often brushed accepted practice at this time in French words and superlatives, either by to the side, and their position in society is society, too often hid the harsh and cruel comparing drawings together, or by almost completely diluted in a man’s world. treatment of the models. Thanks to the comparing them with the actual body. article, “Modeling for Degas”, written by Furthermore, for the drawings that depict Beginning our exploration with Watteau, in Alice Michel and published in 1919 in the washing up, observation and description a Satyr Pouring Wine from 1717, mythology Mercure de France, we see how Pauline, can become the starting point to talking becomes a pretext for the representation Degas’s model, is forced daily into difficult about our daily routine not only for ‘me’ of nudity. During this period, the only poses, suffers from the cold and dirt of but also for ‘she’ or ‘he’, in the present authorised representations of nudes were the studio, and even occasionally falls or in the past. Have our bodies or habits those that were placed in a historical, victim to physical abuse by Degas himself. changed over the years? For the most mythological or religious context. This woman’s story leads us to consider daring pupils, describing the models’ daily the nude model differently. In Delacroix’s lives in the imperfect tense could be quite As we can see in the watercolor The Life Sheet with Two Studies of a Female Nude, challenging! Class at the Royal Academy of Painting did the model not catch cold? Did she and Sculpture by Natoire from 1746, all not suffer from terrible cramps? What is artists from the Academy either had to the model of Ingres’s Study for La Grande WOMEN IN FRENCH HISTORY learn how to draw the nude by copying Odalisque thinking about? Is she dreading Intended for KS4 and KS5 their predecessors, or during life drawing the possible violent consequences if she is classes. However, the nude form is not unable to hold the pose long enough? This exhibition juxtaposes sketches of nude insignificant in art, as it has continuously Woman, frozen in history as a silent, women from different centuries. We notice been a source of controversy. Indeed, the contemplative object, graciously offered up changes in the way bodies are represented naked body needed to convey moral and to the gaze of man; artist, patron or even according to their context: historical or aesthetical values while hiding eroticism simply an onlooker. Would we gaze upon mythological scenes, or later in the private in order to be accepted by a society firmly them in the same way if we knew what sphere, the viewer becomes a peeping condemning pornography. When artists these women really had to say to us? Tom. Even though women are at the heart started moving away from conventional of these works of art, they are noticeably representations of the naked body, such as absent from the exclusive male art world. in Manet’s La Toilette from 1860, the Salon What is the social position of women in this reinforced censorship, and rejected artists world, both by their artistic production or had no other alternative than to create and the way they are represented? And more display their works of art at the Salon des generally, how are women perceived in Refusés. both the private and the public spheres during the period when these drawings At the start of the Third Republic the were produced? What does the law say dismantlement of the Bureau of Censorship regarding women’s rights and duties in in 1880 consequently eased the circulation society at these times? of nude images and representing the These questions and the subsequent naked body in everyday life became more analyses could lead pupils to conduct some common. Whereas the listless woman in research on Olympe de Gouge (1748-1793), Study for ‘La Grande Odalisque’ by Ingres, Eugénie Niboyet (1796-1883), or Suzanne 1813-14 justifies herself by an imaginary Valadon (1865-1938), important feminist Orient, the Female Nude by Seurat, figures contemporary to the period of the 1879-81 or the Seated Woman by Matisse, exhibition. Moreover, talking about these 1919, no longer pretend to be a part of women’s fight for rights could enable any context other than that of everyday pupils to make a connection between life; they are simply there, offered to the these drawings and the post-war periods onlooker. up to today’s society, in order to compare women’s rights and their position in French But what place is given to women in a history. world where the vast majority of artists, 9: TEACHING RESOURCE CD

This Teaching Resource CD includes HOW TO USE THIS CD IMAGE CD COPYRIGHT STATEMENT selected highlights and images from the This CD has been formatted to work with as 1. The images contained on the Teaching MANTEGNA TO MATISSE exhibition. All many browsers as possible including Linux, Resource CD are for educational purposes the works on display in the gallery are part Macintosh OS and Microsoft Windows. only. They should never be used for of The Courtauld’s prints and drawings commercial or publishing purposes, be collection. This disc has been specially This is why it will not launch immediately sold or otherwise disposed of, reproduced formatted to be easy to use. Images can when inserted in your computer. or exhibited in any form or manner be copied and downloaded as long as (including any exhibition by means of they are used for educational purposes Please follow the instructions below to a television broadcast or on the World only. The images have all been formatted launch this interactive CD. Wide Web [Internet]) without the express for use with white boards or projectors. A permission of the copyright holder, The copyright statement is printed at the end of INSTRUCTIONS: Courtauld Gallery, London. this section which outlines authorised and • Open the Data folder restricted usage. This should be read by • Inside are 3 folders: masterdrawings, 2. Images should not be manipulated, every user before using this resource. graphics and style cropped or altered. • Open the masterdrawings folder The works are grouped into three sections • Inside is a sub-folder: Images and 4 3. The copyright in all works of art used depending upon their age. html files:18th century drawings, 19th in this resource remains vested with The and 20th century drawings, earlier Courtauld Gallery, London. All rights and 1: EARLIER DRAWINGS drawings and index. permissions granted by The Courtauld From the Netherlandish, Italian, German • Double click on index, one of the html Gallery and The Courtauld Institute of Art and French schools, these exquisite documents. are non-transferable to third parties unless drawings represent earlier works from 15th contractually agreed beforehand. to17th century Europe This will then launch the Mantegna to Please caption all our images with Matisse teaching resources in your web ‘© The Courtauld Gallery, London’. browser. 2: 18TH CENTURY DRAWINGS 4. Staff and students are welcome to Ranging from works by Watteau to Click on a menu or click on an image to download and print out images, in order to Gainsborough to Tiepolo enlarge as you would use a webpage. illustrate research and coursework (such as essays and presentations). Digital images 3: 19TH AND 20TH CENTURY DRAWINGS may be stored on academic intranet Ranging from Constable to Turner to van databases (private/internal computer Gogh to Picasso system).

5. As a matter of courtesy, please always Unless otherwise stated all images contact relevant lenders/artists for images © The Samuel Courtauld Trust, to be reproduced in the public domain. The Courtauld Gallery, London For a broader use of our images (internal short run publications or brochures for example), you will need to contact Please visit our following pages for more The Courtauld Gallery for permission. information on: Please contact us at: Courtauld Images, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset • Public Programmes: www.courtauld. House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN. ac.uk/publicprogrammes, where you can [email protected], download other resources, organise a Tel: +44 (0)20 7848 2879. 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 CURRICULUM LINKS: KS2+ related events. Art and Design, History, Art History, and If your web browser is unable to open the other humanities. folder you can open the data folder, inside To download a pdf of this teachers which you will find all of the images saved resource please visit www.courtauld.ac.uk/ as jpeg files. 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

7: GLOSSARY OF TERMS

8: REGARDE!: QUELLE FEMMES? Marie Sautin

9: TEACHING RESOURCES CD Shannon Hanrahan and Alice Odin

TEACHERS’ RESOURCE MANTEGNA TO MATISSE: 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