Sixteenth-Century Central Italian Drawings [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION In the course of the 15th and 16th centuries - as may be seen in contemporary theoretical writings on Italian Renaissance art - the act of drawing and its result, the drawing itself (disegno) evolved from being a preliminary technical aid in artistic practice into the highest realization, indeed a summation, of the fundamental principles of artistic creation. This historical process in the appreciation of the art of drawing accurately reflects the radical transformation of artistic practice in the modern era, the thorough metamorphosis in the social position of the Renaissance artist - die very factors diat brought about fundamental changes during the two centuries of the development of Renaissance art. At the acme of this development stands the new, modern artist of the age: the many-sided and independent intellectual creator who, in the possession of disegno, rises above the host of anonymous craftsmen battling each other over inessential issues, and, with the help of drawing (as Giorgio Vasari has stated for all of them) gives form to the ideas and artistic conceptions latent in his soul, and what is more, not only in one artistic mode but in any and all of die three major branches of visual art: painting, sculpture and architecture. In the course of this period, and especially in its latter half, during the 16th century, the great century of disegno, the history of drawing becomes essentially identical witii the general history of the arts and its logical consequence is Vasari's unprecedented notion to attach to his well-known Lives, (the first historical overview of Italian Renaissance art), at least for his own private use, a "volume of illustrations" composed of drawings, (his Libro de} Disegni), thereby providing an abbreviated, but immediately accessible and visually vivid insight into this dramatic story, the processes of artistic creation, as well as the evolution in the arts itself. Although the status and relative significance assigned to the art of drawing within the context of 16th-century Italian, especially Central Italian visual art appears to be extraordinary and unparalleled, it is naturally not without its antecedents, and many threads link it most closely to the history and artistic production of the earlier Renaissance period. The emphasis placed on the importance of drawing in the training of young artists, especially in Florence, remains essentially constant throughout the entire period of the Renaissance. In all likelihood it was basically this attitude that ensured a singularly continuous, unwaveringly secure foundation for the development of Florentine art. The oft-quoted words inscribed by Michelangelo during the first third of the 16th century on one of his sheets of studies, exhorting his young assistant Antonio Mini ("Draw, Antonio! draw and don't waste your time") only repeat the advice given more than a century earlier by the otherwise insignificant painter Cennino Cennini, in his systematic summary of the basic principles of correct artistic practice: the young artist should first of all learn to draw - for, as Lorenzo Ghiberti first formulated it not much later, mastery of drawing lays the foundation of both arts, painting and sculpture. A specific course of instruction in drawing aimed at training painters and sculptors appears to have been equally required in 15th-century workshops and in the informal "proto-academies" of the 16th century (as for example Baccio Bandinelli's), as well as in the painters' academies that became established by the second half of the century. It was no accident that the first of these, founded in 1563 in Florence, and which became the model for the later institutions, was named Accademia del Disegno, "academy of drawing". Before becoming a painter the art student at any of diese institutions started out by copying works by his master or earlier masters, beginning with linear and planar compositions (drawings, etchings or paintings), followed by relief and sculpture, originals or plaster casts by antique or contemporary masters, until finally arriving at the stage of doing studies from nature, with live figure drawing representing the acme of attainment. (However it is also true that the value placed on this latter activity underwent considerable fluctuation during the 16th century, and during a significant portion of the century the cultivation of nature studies was pushed into the background.)