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EXCERPT FROM
Annotated Art Essay 4
Looking at Drawings: An Introduction
Copyright © 2005 Dianne L. Durante
All rights reserved.
This essay was inspired by the exhibition
of Rubens drawings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
that runs through April 3, 2005. For those who can't attend the
exhibition,
references are given to websites and books for the same or similar
drawings.
Why look at drawings?
Where to go to look at drawingsLibyan Sibyl from the Sistine Chapel ceiling
Copying ancient sculptureDrawings as compositional studies for paintings
Susannah
Lions
Assorted figure studiesFinished portrait drawings
Nicolaas Rubens Wearing a Coral Necklace
Lady in Waiting (Rubens’ daughter?)
Nicolaas Rubens Wearing a Red Felt CapComparison with finished painting
Samson and Delilah
Garden of LoveSummary of what to look at in drawings
Visit Rubens paintings in the Metropolitan Museum
Recommended books on drawings and on Rubens
Related essays
Future Annotated Art essays
Why look at drawings?
Looking at drawings is like seeing an artist thinking. Most people don't rework the School of Athens or the Sistine Chapel ceiling in their minds: it's difficult to imagine a top-notch painting in any way other than its familiar finished state. But the artist's sketches bring home the truth that the finished product wasn't predetermined, and didn't spring full-blown from the artist's mind. It was the product of long, hard thought. Viewing drawings gives you a glimpse into that effort: what the artist tried, modified, and rejected before settling on the final version.
Another reason to look at drawings is for the practice it gives you in looking at art. To look at a work of visual art for an extended period and enjoy every detail, you need to be able to shift your focus at will from the broadest issues (theme, historical context) down to the most minute details. In reading literature, it’s the difference between considering the theme and looking at word choice or syntax. It's being able to move from the concrete to the general and back again, or more colloquially, being able to see the size and shape of the forest while still identifying the separate trees.
Looking at drawings is excellent practice for learning to study details, because in a drawing the wider context is usually not there. You're seeing the artist working out details of one or two figures, so you can practice observing them without worrying about the significance of the finished painting.
Where to go to look at drawings
Since drawings are subject to fading, most museums don't have permanent exhibitions of them. This paper was inspired by an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art of a hundred or so drawings by Rubens that date from his early days sketching in Rome for his own edification through the end of his career, when he often made quick sketches for paintings that assistants helped him produce. The exhibition runs until April 3, 2005, and includes a sketch by Michelangelo for the Sistine ceiling: see Drawings for study below. Alas, it does not travel to any other venue. A catalogue of the exhibition is available: see Recommendations.
The MMA's audio guide to the Rubens exhibition offers much historical background and some comments on the drawings as art. Unless you're an inveterate multi-tasker, I recommend going through the exhibition once to look at the drawings as art, and again with the audio guide. Plan to limit the time you spend intensively studying the drawings. You should never get to the point where looking at another drawing becomes an unpleasant duty rather than a scintillating pleasure.
If you can't get to the MMA, their website’s pages for the Rubens exhibition are extremely well done, allowing you to zoom in on a couple dozen drawings: http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Rubens/index.asp
I've also given links to some drawings on the web that support the same points I'm making with the MMA's exhibition, and to a $6 book of Rubens’ drawings. (See Recommendations.)
If you find yourself interested in drawings, investigate museums or galleries in your city that carry representational art. While it's fantastic to look at drawings by the Old Masters of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, you can hone your skills at observation by looking at artists who are less well known.
NOTE: When you're looking at the drawings, you'll need to be up close to them. Try to go when the museum's not crowded.
Drawings for study
In the seventeenth century, 200 years before the invention of photography, an artist who wanted to remember and study another artist's work had no choice but to draw a copy of it. ...
END EXCERPT. The full essay (about 3,700 words, 8 single-spaced pages) is available for $2.00.
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