The early 15th century Il Libro dell’Arte (The Craftsman Handbook) by Cennino Cennini (ca. 1360-before 1427) marked a watershed in ideas about drawing and art in general. It presented drawing for the first time not only as a preparatory step but as the foundation of all art, representating in two dimensions the artist’s design or disegno. Cennini’s text also held up nature as ‘the most perfect guide and best helm that one can have,’ making much of Cennini’s artistic kinship with the great 13th-century master Giotto, one the first artists to adopt a naturalistic style. Amongst Cennini’s most accomplished contemporaries was Antonio Pisano, known as Pisanello (ca. 1395-ca. 1455), whose drawings of animals and humans are closely observed and highly skilled.

PISANELLO

Pisanello produced paintings, frescoes and medals for the Doge of Venice, the Pope, the King of Naples and several dukes. He made use of every type of drawing, from quick sketches in pen and brush to finished studies which he later translated into panel paintings. The drawings of stags’ heads below were probably preparatory studies for his painting of The Vision of Saint Eustace now in the National Gallery in London. The study of the standing dog, which vividly describes with strokes of the pen the texture and direction of the animal’s hair, is typical of Pisanello’s technique. Although his human figures include some of the earliest life drawings in existence, he sometimes enhanced them to correspond to notions of ideal beauty. This is probably the case with the studies of a female nude below which may have been partly based on life drawings of men.

CENNINI

Cennini’s The Craftsman Handbook starts with instruction about drawing which he presents for the first time both as a preparatory tool and as a practice representing the artist’s conception. The book was written at a time when artists were struggling to be accepted on a level with major guilds such as doctors and merchants. Pisanello mentions his connection to Taddeo Gaddi (ca. 1290-1366), the father of his teacher Agnolo, who he said had been trained by the great 13th-century master Giotto. The handbook includes sections on “drawing on a little panel”, “drawing with a style and by what light”, how to use a quill pen, how to make and use different kinds of tinted paper and parchment, and a number of other contemporary techniques.