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Introduction

Design and Description

Renaissance and Baroque Drawings
January 27 - April 9, 2006

Beginning in the early Renaissance (ca. 1400), artists and their patrons sought new ways to make art and its subject matter correspond more directly to the world of their viewers. In the pursuit of increasingly naturalistic art, drawing became a regular part of artistic practice.

The Italian word for drawing, disegno, also may be translated as “design.” In artists’ workshops and emerging art academies in Renaissance Italy, young apprentices were taught to follow clearly defined steps in the design of frescos, panel paintings, sculpture, and prints. Artists began with free-form sketches that explored compositional ideas and also with studies from life or antique sculpture. These were followed with drawings that explored the effects of light, shadow, and spatial illusion. Lastly, artists created fully realized drawings to integrate all of these design elements into models (called modelli) for the final works.

In Germany and the Netherlands, preparatory drawings became common only in the 1550s. Instead, drawings were presented to patrons as finished works or as contractual agreements. They were also used in instruction: artists often made drawings of completed paintings to use as workshop examples. For these reasons, many early Northern drawings are highly finished, emphasizing the descriptive detail, texture, and reflective effects of light for which Northern painters were known.

By the 17th century (Baroque period), artists from all over Europe traveled to Italy for part of their training. As a result, the Italian tradition of systematic design permeated artistic practice throughout the continent. As well, new genres such as landscape emerged with emphasis upon sketching on site.

The Renaissance and Baroque reliance on drawing carried through to the art academies of later centuries, continuing today at RISD as the foundation upon which students base their artistic training.

Selected Objects

Attributed to Luca Penni

Venus Riding on a Shell Chariot, ca. 1540-1555

Circle of Jan de Beer

The Adoration of the Magi, ca. 1510

Attributed to Pierre Jacques

Sheet of Studies after the Antique. Recto: Studies of legs. Verso: Satyr, Lyres, Galloping Horses, Architectural Elements, mid 1600s-early 1700s

Jan Gossaert

Adam and Eve, ca. 1525

Esaias van de Velde I

Frozen Canal before a Farm in Winter, ca. 1628

Hendrik de Clerck

David and Abigail, ca. 1590-1600

German

Buttercups, Red Clover, and Plantain, 1526

Unknown artist

Triumphal Car Depicting the Allegory of Vice, 1600 - 1640

Italian

Double-sided sheet: Recto: studies of skulls; Verso: studies of draperies, 1600s

Attributed to Moretto da Brescia

Madonna and Child with Saint Roch, mid 1500s

Carlo Maratti

Double-Sided Sheet with Studies of Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides, ca. 1692

Cesare Pollini

Workshop of an Artist, late 1500s - early 1600s

Workshop of Jan Brueghel the Elder

Landscape with Two Windmills and a Town, after 1607

Hans Bol

The Resurrection of Christ, ca. 1573

Luca Cambiaso

Descent from the Cross, ca. 1572 - 1575

Maerten van Heemskerck

Study for The Triumph of David, 1559

Circle of Hieronymus Bosch

Model Sheet with Monsters, ca. 1510

Ottavio Leoni

Portrait of Maddalena Telli by Candlelight, 1617

Rembrandt van Rijn

Landscape (Farm Buildings at the Dijk) (recto); Partial Landscape with Trees and Fence (verso), ca. 1648

Pieter Withoos

Study of Four Butterflies and a Bumblebee, ca. 1680

Baccio Bandinelli

Early Design for the Tomb of Pope Clement VII, ca. 1534-1536

Jusepe de Ribera

Inquisition Scene, after 1635

Circle of Cesare Nebbia

Roman Soldier, ca. 1580

Giovanni Battista Bertani

Double-Sided Sheet: Study for Hercules Victorious over the Hydra (recto); Study of Hercules, a Roman Soldier’s Head, and Ornament (verso), 1557 - 1558

Anthony van Dyck

Study for Malchus, ca. 1618-1620

Attributed to Jacopo da Empoli

Figure Study, late 1500s- early 1600s

Valentin Lefebvre

Adoration of the Shepherds, 1600s

Pieter Jansz. Pourbus

Study for The Last Judgment, ca. 1550 - 1551

Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione

Christ on the Cross Adored by Angels, ca. 1650-60

Marco Tullio Montagna

Scenes from the Life of Saint Joseph, ca. 1631

Jan van Goyen

Untitled (Landscape with Gallows), page 26 from a sketchbook, 1627

More objects +

Exhibition Checklist

Design and Description : Renaissance and Baroque Drawings

January 27 - April 9, 2006
View Checklist PDF

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