One legacy of the Italian Renaissance was that from the late 16th century onwards, ambitious artists throughout Europe believed that a visit to Italy was an essential part of the curriculum. Rome, with its monuments from Classical Antiquity, drew foreigners such as Rubens and Poussin as well as home-grown figures such as Annibale Carracci and Caravaggio. The city was also the nerve-centre of the Catholic Church whose patronage gave free reign to artists such as the Baroque genius Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The century also saw the rise of a more naturalistic style in the works of Velázquez and Rembrandt, who produced some of the most memorable drawings of all time, as well as portraiture and landscapes like those of the French Claude Lorrain.

ITALY

 Ludovico, Agostino and Annibale Carraci were Bolognese painters who in 1582 founded one of the earliest formal academies for young artists, the Accademia degli Incamminati. Here students learnt to reject Mannerism in favour of the more pious and naturalistic style of the High Renaissance, albeit with a new dynamism that became the hallmark of Baroque art. One of the Carracci’s students was Guido Reni (1575-1642), whose beautiful Virgins recall Raphael, but many other Italian and northern European artists followed, such as the French Simon Vouet (1590-1649) who took the new Baroque style back to France. The next generation, including Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), created even more theatrical compositions such as the Sanguis Christi (Allegory on the Holy Blood of Christ). One of the least conventional artists of the later Baroque was Salvator Rosa (1615-1673), whose drawings and paintings of wild, fantastic landscapes exercised considerable influence on 19th-century Romantic painting.

FRANCE

 Several French artists visited Italy too. One of the first was Claude Lorraine (ca. 1600-1682) who spent most of his life in Rome. Although the poetic landscapes for which he is best known were painted in the studio, he worked from detailed drawings from nature. Another was Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), who sketched alongside Claude in the Roman countryside and integrated this material into religious and mythological compositions. Simon Vouet (1590-1649) spent a long period in Rome but returned to Paris in 1627, introducing Baroque style to fellow artists at the French court. Charles Le Brun (1619-1690) who accompanied Poussin to Rome, became Louis XIV’s principal court painter, producing the designs for several royal residences. In 1655 he became the director of the French Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, modelled on the Roman Accademia di San Luca.

LOW COUNTRIES

 Artists from Antwerp had started visiting Italy in the 16th century, Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617) being one of the last to arrive. In 1600, he was followed by the young Pieter Paul Rubens (1577-1650) who produced a series of magnificent altarpieces in the new Baroque style upon his return to northern Europe in 1608. Several of their contemporaries were drawn to the art of Caravaggio, exemplified by the strongly-contrasted areas of light and dark in the drawing here by Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678). Rubens’s assistant, Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), was also influenced by Caravaggio, particularly in some of his portrait drawings. Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) was clearly interested too, although he never left Holland. His drawings are loved for perfectly encapsulating a range of human emotion, with intelligent compositions, lively pen- and brush-work, and atmospheric rendering of light and colour. Some artists, such as Jacob van Ruisdael (1599-1664) and Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634), specialised in secular subjects in response to the Protestant distaste for religious iconography and emergence of an open market for drawings and paintings.

SPAIN

 Although Spain produced some of the 17th century’s finest artists, relatively few drawings from this period survive. This was until recently explained by discounting the importance of drawing in local practice, but is now believed that many drawings have perished due to their value, above all, as working tools. As in Italy, young artists learned to draw by copying from prints, drawings and casts, and were only later allowed to draw from life. Almost all surviving drawings from this century are, however, of religious subjects, although Francisco Pacheco (1564-1644) produced a series of fine portrait drawings as did his pupil and son-in-law Diego Velázquez (1599-1660). The drawings of another pupil, Alonso Cano (1601-1667), show him studying the effects of light and shadow as do the drawings Bartolomé Murillo (1617-1682). In Madrid, the expressive, chiaroscuro technique of the Florentine Vicente Carducho (1585-1638) had a huge impact on artists of the next generation such as Francisco Rizi (1614-1685) and Juan Carreño de Miranda (1614-1685). Perhaps the finest 17th-century Spanish draughtsman was Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652) who, aged 20, left for Italy in 1611 and settled permanently in Naples.