Fra Angelico to Leonardo: Italian Renaissance Drawings
British Museum, until 25 July
The latest exhibition in the Round Reading Room is an awe-inspiring collection of Italian Renaissance drawings, the kind of display likely to be seen only once in a lifetime. It is a large show of relatively small things, offering 100 examples of the finest drawings made between 1400 and 1510, entirely selected from two collections: the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi in Florence, and the British Museum itself. Here we see the birth of drawing as an independent art form, and not simply as a preliminary study for a painting. During this period, drawings began to be collected for themselves, to be valued as examples of specifically graphic skills, and artists responded by making drawings for this new market. If today there are still those who consider drawings to be lesser art works than paintings, this exhibition may help to dispel their prejudice.
The handsome but hefty catalogue (£30 in paperback), written by Hugo Chapman and Marzia Faietti, is an excellent and informative reference book, but not the sort of thing to carry round as an exhibition guide. I suggest that the visitor to this monumental and exciting display might benefit most by picking out certain works and concentrating on them. In this way, the exhibition will develop shape and contour and not seem to be just a roll-call of great artists. The temptation is to pay more attention to the household names such as Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo, but I would not recommend this obvious route. For me, alternative high points of the show are Pisanello’s ‘Three men’, Piero di Cosimo’s ‘Landscape with the penitent St Jerome’ and Titian’s ‘Portrait of a young woman in profile to the right’. All three are works which really move me, not just to admiration for technical expertise, but emotionally, too, for what they say about humanity and the world in which we live.
The exhibition opens with Michelangelo: ‘An old man wearing a hat (so-called Philosopher)’, a solid figure holding out a spherical object which might be a skull. The notion of such a real and earthbound figure trading in the airiness of ideas is an attractive one. Perhaps he addresses the skull, certainly the scallop badge in his hat identifies him as a pilgrim, so he could be a wandering scholar. Michelangelo is not precise as to his role, merely evocative. Nearby is a lovely ink drawing of the ‘Adoration of the Magi’ by Perugino, and a powerful squared-up charcoal study of three shepherds and an angel by Signorelli. (Actually a preparatory work for the ‘Adoration of the Shepherds’ in the National Gallery.) These examples serve to remind us that the majority of drawings in this show are still working studies, however finished they might be for possible sale.
Moving through this slightly maze-like and circuitous display, there are wonders at every turn. An exquisite Fra Angelico drawing in ink with a purple wash depicts King David plucking a psaltery, an ancient instrument like a dulcimer. Compare the vertical probing delicacy (very Gothic) of Lorenzo Monaco’s drawing of six kneeling saints. Then comes Pisanello’s splendid trio of courtiers dressed in the height of fashion: furred and braided and most extravagantly hatted. A marvellously sensitive piece of work, full of nuance and subtly differentiated texture. Compare the grisly studies of hanged men next to it. From time to time video presentations intersperse the exhibits, presumably to relieve the casual visitor of the boredom of looking at drawings and to fill heads with useful or useless information, depending on your viewpoint.
A very different kind of subject is the chalice attributed to Uccello, a finely structured drawing in ink, rather like a computer projection of a grail from a Harry Potter film. A large album of drawings by Jacopo Bellini is open at a difficult-to-see lead-point evocation of a tournament. Also rather faint in black chalk are a couple of convincing dogs by Pollaiuolo. Other drawings by this master include studies of St John the Baptist and Adam. Adam after the Fall rolls his eyes and gestures, too late, at his wife in blame. Mantegna is more interested in foreshortening, while Gentile Bellini draws a Turkish janissary and a woman in Middle Eastern costume with an extraordinarily satisfying lucidity of line.
Verrochio’s ‘Head of an angel’ (c.1475), undoubtedly drawn from life with downcast eyes and sensuous lips, is distinctly more beautiful to my eye than his ‘Head of a Woman’ from the same period, but this is a personal response rather than a comparison of techniques in charcoal or ink and black chalk. We can learn as much about ourselves in a show like this as about the way volume may be conveyed by line and shading. Both remain superb drawings. There’s an interesting use of ink hatching in Perugino’s ‘Sibyl’, while opposite hang half-a-dozen Leonardo drawings, including the famous bust of a warrior. Also here is ‘Landscape’ (1473), the first dated drawing by Leonardo and the earliest landscape study in European art. It’s interesting to look at this and think of van Gogh’s marvellous reed pen drawings, recently seen at the Royal Academy. That kind of connection can illuminate both parties.
There’s a double-headed ‘Pallas’ by Botticelli, in which he obviously changed his mind about the position of the head and its expression, so much more poignant than the rather vacuous ‘Abundance’ next to it. Signorelli’s ‘Four Nudes’ is worth notice, before the substantial charcoal drawing, ‘Landscape with the penitent St Jerome’ by Piero di Cosimo, takes centre stage. A complex work, mixing reality and fantasy, it’s the largest drawing in the exhibition, and deserves prolonged study. Drawings of this quality demand real attention: this is not an exhibition to whizz round. Look at Carpaccio’s ‘Triumph of St George’, for instance, or the side room of Raphaels. His ink ‘Cartoon for St George’ is far more exciting than the oil from the Louvre hanging next to it. And, finally, Titian, who for my money overshadows even Raphael and Leonardo. Here is a softly melancholic depiction to touch the heart. The exhibition, which is supported by BP, will travel next year to the Uffizi in Florence where it will be on show from 1 February to 30 April. Magnificent.
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