1000 Drawings of Genius. Victoria Charles
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whose work is intellectual as much as manual. Art and science go together, and its key element is perspective, the ‘visual pyramid’ of which Alberti speaks in this short extract dealing with drawing, that has been selected from his second book on painting:
“[Painting] is only worthy of a noble and free spirit, being for me the best sign of its ingenious excellence the dedication to drawing. […]
“The perfection of painting consists of contour, composition, and light and shade […]
“[C]ontour consists of the correct placing of lines, which today is called “drawing”. […] I feel drawings must be done with very subtle lines, hardly visible for the eye, in the way Apelles did […] I would like drawing to be limited to giving contour, for which it is necessary to exercise with infinite diligence and care, since no composition or intelligent use of light can be praised if they are missing the drawing. On the contrary, many times it so happens that a good drawing is enough to please the viewer: this is why drawing is the part on which we must insist the most, for the study of which there can be no better method than the veil, of which I am the inventor. You must take a transparent piece of fabric, commonly called a veil, of any colour. Once we have placed it on a stretcher, we use threads to divide it into many small, equal squares. Afterwards, we place it between us and the object we want to copy, in order for the visual pyramid to penetrate through the transparency of the veil. This veil has many uses: first, it always represents the same immobile surface […] It is absolutely impossible for things not to change when one is painting, since the painter never looks at the object from exactly the same spot […] Therefore, the veil has the advantage that it will always represent the object in the same way. Secondly, with the veil all the parts of the drawing, as well as the contours, will be shown with exact precision; because on seeing that the forehead is on one little square, that the nose is on the one below it, the cheek on the one next to it, the beard on the one further down and, in the same way, all the parts in their respective places, it is very easy to transfer them to the panel or the wall, using the same disposition of squares we have used on the veil. […] I do not share the opinion of those who say: it is not good for painters to get used to the veil or the grid; because it makes things easier and serves to do things well, afterwards they will not be able to do anything by themselves without its help, only with great effort. It is obvious that we do not look into the great or little effort of the painter, but rather praise the painting which has high relief and which looks like the natural bodies it represents. I do not know how this can be achieved by anyone, even half-well, without the help of the veil. For those who wish to progress in art, take advantage of it; and if someone wants to display their knowledge without it, then they must imagine they have it before them, and work as if it were really there, so that with the help of an imaginary grid they can give exact limits to the painting.”
24. Lorenzo Monaco (Piero di Giovanni), c. 1370–1425, Italian, Six Saints Kneeling, date unknown. Pen and ink on parchment, 24.5 × 17.5 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. International Gothic.
LORENZO MONACO
(Piero di Giovanni)
(Siena? c. 1370 – Florence, c. 1425)
Lorenzo Monaco was one of the last great exponents of Florentine late Gothic painting. Though he is thought to have been born in Siena, he worked in Florence for more than thirty years. His real name was Piero di Giovanni, but he began to be known as Lorenzo Monaco (Lorenzo ‘the monk’) when he entered the Camaldolense monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in 1391. He is known for his frescoes in the Bartolini chapel in Santa Trinità (Florence), but he was mainly a painter of altarpieces.
He received the influence of Duccio and may have been trained by Agnolo Gaddi and Jacopo de Cione. His graceful figures and gold backgrounds, typical of the Italo-Byzantine Gothic, make him perhaps the last great exponent of this school. His work serves as a sharp contrast to his greatest contemporary, Masaccio, who would signal the way for Renaissance painting. Despite this, Monaco would have an important influence on another Renaissance great, Fra Angelico.
25. Lorenzo Monaco (Piero di Giovanni), c. 1370–1425, Italian, Decorated Initial with Scene of Christ Entering the Temple, 1408–1411. Pen and ink on parchment, 30.5 × 24.4 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. International Gothic.
26. Anonymous, 15th century, Italian, Two Monks Looking up at a Dragon in a Tower, 1400–1450. Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash on vellum, 18.7 × 13.9 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Late Gothic.
27. Anonymous, 15th century, Italian, The Dominican, Petrus de Croce, Encountering the Devil and Serpents, 1417. Pen and wash on parchment, 24.1 × 13.4 cm. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo. Late Gothic.
28. Anonymous, 15th century, Italian, The Shipwreck of Brother Petrus, His Capture and His Audience before a Muslim Ruler, 1417. Pen and wash on parchment, 30.2 × 13.8 cm. Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge (Massachusetts). Late Gothic.
29. Fra Angelico (Guido di Pietro), c. 1395–1455, Italian, Justice, c. 1427. Pen and ink, brush and brown wash, 19.3 × 17 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Early Renaissance.
30. Fra Angelico (Guido di Pietro), c. 1395–1455, Italian, King David Playing a Psaltery, c. 1430. Pen and ink, and wash, on vellum, 19.7 × 17.8 cm. British Museum, London. Early Renaissance.
FRA ANGELICO
(Guido di Pietro)
(Vicchio di Mugello, c. 1395 – Rome, 1455)
Secluded within cloister walls, a painter and a monk, and brother of the order of the Dominicans, Angelico devoted his life to religious paintings.
Little is known of his early life except that he was born at Vicchio, in the broad fertile valley of the Mugello, not far from Florence, that his name was Guido de Pietro, and that he passed his youth in Florence, probably in some bottegha, for at twenty he was recognised as a painter. In 1418 he entered a Dominican convent in Fiesole with his brother. They were welcomed by the monks and, after a year’s novitiate, admitted to the brotherhood, Guido taking the name by which he was known for the rest of his life, Fra Giovanni da Fiesole; the title of Angelico, the “Angel,” or Il Beato, “The Blessed,” was conferred on him after his death.
Henceforth he became an example of two personalities in one man: he was all in all a painter, but also a devout monk; his subjects were always religious ones and represented in a deeply religious spirit, yet his devotion as a monk was no greater than his absorption as an artist. Consequently, though his life was secluded within the walls of the monastery, he kept in touch with the art movements of his time and continually developed as a painter. His early work shows that he had learned of the illuminators who inherited the Byzantine traditions, and had been affected by the simple religious feeling of Giotto’s work. Also influenced by Lorenzo Monaco and the Sienese School, he painted under the patronage of Cosimo de Medici. Then he began to learn of that brilliant band of sculptors and architects who were enriching Florence with their genius. Ghiberti was executing his pictures in bronze upon the doors of the Baptistery; Donatello, his famous statue of St. George and the dancing children around the organ – gallery in the Cathedral; and Luca della Robbia was at work upon his frieze of children, singing, dancing and playing upon instruments. Moreover, Masaccio had revealed the dignity of form in painting. Through these artists, the beauty of the human form and of its life and movement was being manifested to the Florentines and to the other cities. Angelico caught the enthusiasm and gave increasing reality of life and movement to his figures.