THE ENCOUNTER
THE
ENCOUNTER: DRAWINGS FROM LEONARDO TO REMBRANDT at the NATIONAL PORTRAIT
GALLERY, LONDON, SUNDAY JULY 23RD, 2017
Art production suddenly
changed in Renaissance Europe as paper became more readily available. This was due to the dissolution of antiquated
monopolies established during the medieval period. In Italy the reproduction of stale, formulaic
religious works had given way to the study of nature and the human form. Before the Renaissance artists were expected
to reproduce Biblical scenes, repressing their own creative natures at the
behest of their church patrons. Specific
formulas had been established with rigid rules designed to inhibit the artist
whose individuality was rigorously stamped out.
Artists did not even sign their works, the idea of an artist creating a
recognisable body of work was unknown.
Furthermore, religious art only celebrated types belonging to different
feudal classes who were unindividuated.
Even Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were prone to produce
stereotypical biblical scenes but not without subtly recasting them with their
own supposedly heretical notions.
Leonardo’s preoccupation with a secondary biblical personage, John the
Baptist, for instance, or Michelangelo’s inclusion of the Roman sibyls
alongside the biblical prophets in his fresco on the roof of the Sistine
chapel. Such idiosyncratic, personal
work was now being tolerated as artists began to shape society and the church
too.
The advent of a ready
supply of paper for artists invigorated the creative norms that we have come to
accept, these changes were also connected to the Reformation that began to
sweep through Europe after the upheaval of the Renaissance. Humanism and its advocates had triumphed
except for the Counter-Reformation which had begun a counter-attack which would
sink Europe into continual religious conflict.
The Encounter presents
workshopped portraits that somehow survived since many of these sketches were
viewed as valueless and discarded at the time.
They represent an artist’s sketchbook rather than finished works but this
idea of an artist drawing from life and possessing a sketchbook was also
entirely novel. Typical media were red,
black and white chalk, silverpoint inscribing tools, gum Arabic for improving
the intensity and lustre of the paint and adhesion of the different media and
red and green pigments. Paper had to be
prepared for silverpoint by painting prepared pigments onto paper. Quills cut from a goose were also popular.
Studies
of Character Heads by Hans Holbein the Elder from Augsburg,
Germany are from a model book that would have been the basis of a stereotypical
representation of the Passion of Christ (c1500-15). The work is strikingly unsubtle for the
individuals depicted were meant to be types rather than differentiated
individuals. The work is still
sublime. Contrastingly, Rembrandt’s Figure Studies (c1636) bear the imprint
of an artist motivated by commerce rather than religious patronage. His work is intimately secular and original,
miniature portraits conceived in seconds.
By Rembrandt’s time commercial projects had replaced the adornment of
churches for the Reformation had maintained that churches should be plain and
austere thus separating religion from art in a way that foreshadowed later
developments. By the 19th
century art had established itself in relation to the critics and opponents of
Christianity who had begun to question the church and the many miseries it had
created and thus the work of the Reformation began to be fulfilled and went in
surprising directions. Since only one
work by Rembrandt and one by Leonardo is included the exhibition’s title is a
bit spurious. However, those names will
definitely draw crowds who may also be overwhelmed by the work of relatively
unknown artists.
Albrecht Durer’s
(1471-1528) Hierin sind begriffen vier
Bucher von menschliche Proportion are quasi scientific studies of human
proportion inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian principles whose work
Durer had observed during his travels in Italy.
Leonardo’s Study of a Nude Man
(c1504-06) is an adumbration of a figure from his work Battle of Anghieri and exemplifies the proportions and gradations
explicable because of his observations of corpses and their dissection. This meeting of scientific curiosity and art
was Leonardo’s signature achievement.
The workshop of the
Carracci brothers, Ludovico (1555-1619), Agostino (1557-1602) and Annibale
(1560-1609) is also presented to demonstrate the stylistic unity of a certain
workshop. Their Study of a Young Man from the mid-1580s demonstrates their handling
of red chalk and the sfumato effects offering a smoky, intense atmosphere. The young man in the portrait is clearly
deformed, pinpointing their determination to find new subject matter for their
art as well as extending the limits of technique. They employ expressive use of
light and shade as in Young Boy Wearing a
Round Cap attributed to Annibale Carracci and Annibale’s work Giulio Pedrizzano (1589-1630), the Lutenist Mascheroni, exemplifies
speed in the handling of the pen whereas other areas, such as the eyes, are
more heavily worked.
Hans Holbein the Youngers
(1497/8-1543) work for Henry VIII is presented in some sense, as the epitomy of
the drawing that is simultaneously a work of art. His work Woman
Wearing a White Headdress (c1532-43) is a detailed, frank engagement with a
young woman whose eyes are completed in a variety of media contrasting with the
rest of her figure. Man Wearing a Black Cap (1535) contrasts an exceptionally detailed
and fine head with the loose yet accurate depiction of his gown in liquid,
black media. Man Wearing a Cap possibly Sir Ralph Sadler (1507-1587), completed
in 1535, is plaintive as the young man’s pale blue eyes gaze out of the
portrait. We feel that we keenly understand
this young man even if his portrait is merely a series of pen strokes. The artist has managed to summon his soul and
depict it in the sketch.
The
Encounter is an exhibition that tantalises the viewer, its
miniature proportions imply a wholly complete series of souls that are really
portraits that attest to their simplicity and humanity. The sitters may be rude, rough people yet they
become living artworks, somehow communicating their pains and joys to us over
the centuries.
Paul Murphy, the National
Portrait Gallery, July 2017
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