NATURALISTIC DEPICTION PAGE — The Practice of Drawing

IMITATING NATURE IN ITALY

Another theme taken over from the ancients was the imitation of nature. The 1st century Roman author Valerius Maximus had taught that “art wishes to follow nature”, and the Greek Pliny the Elder’s Natural History told the story of the painter Xeuxis whose painted grapes were so life-like that birds tried to eat them. Perspective and relief - the illusion of the three-dimensions created by means of light and shadow on the flat surface of the sheet or panel - were the keys to achieving this. Leonardo da Vinci produced one of the first pure landscapes in European art history. Most of his contemporaries, such as Antonio Pollaiuolo (1429-1498) and Andrea Mantegna (ca. 1431-1506), were primarily interested in naturalistic depiction of the human body and head. These depictions were often integrated into Christian subjects such as the Ascension and the Nativity, which continued to be much in demand.

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Andrea Mantegna, Two Studies for Christ at the Column, early 1460s, pen and brown ink, London, Samuel Courtauld Trust.

Andrea Mantegna, Apostles Watching the Ascension of Christ, mid-15th century, brown ink & brown wash, white gouache on gray-green prepared paper, Cambridge MA., Harvard Art Museums.

Whereas Florentine drawing was based on line, in Venice and Padua (where Mantegna originated) more emphasis was given to the play of light and colour to model the forms.

Leonardo da Vinci, Study of a Tuscan Landscape, 1473, Florence, Gallerie delle Uffizi.

Giovanni Bellini (attributed), The Nativity, ca. 1480, pen, brush and brown ink, London, Samuel Courtauld Trust.

Sandro Botticelli, Allegory of Abundance, 1480-1485, pen, brown ink, brown wash and chalk on pink paper, London, British Museum.

In this elegant scene, relief or rilievo is achieved by the over-laying of pencil, pen and brush on pink paper.

Antonio Pollaiuolo, Study for the Equestrian Monument to Francesco Sforza, early to mid-1480s, pen and brown ink, light and dark brown wash, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The painter, sculptor, engraver, and goldsmith Antonio Pollaiuolo was one of the most groundbreaking artists of the early Renaissance. This drawing was a design for a bronze monument commissioned by Ludovico Sforza, ruler of Milan, in honour of his father, Francesco Sforza. The task was eventually given to Leonardo da Vinci who never completed the monument. Giorgio Vasari, who owned the sheet, may have added the brown wash around the figures.

Domenico Ghirlandaio, Head of an Old man, ca. 1490, silverpoint on pink prepared paper, Stockholm, National Museum of Sweden.

This drawing is striking for the uncompromising and apparently realistic depiction of the figure’s mis-shapen nose. It was also owned by Vasari who reduced the original sheet to an oval and framed it, perhaps ironically, with adoring females.

Giovanni Bellini, Lamentation over the Body of Christ, before 1510, pen and sepia ink on paper, Paris, Musée du Louvre.

Giovanni was the brother of Gentile and brother-in-law of Mantegna. He made many drawings of the Lamentation; in this one, strongly-defined hatching emphasises the pathos and drama of the subject.