The Art of Pencil Drawing: An Historical Overview

In art drawing is the foundation. Pencil drawing provides a more direct and intimate link to an artists’ creative process than does painting. Many artists refer to pencil drawing as ‘knitting’: this is the process where both dreams and ideas are drawn out of the unconscious mind and knitted together into a cohesive unit that is generally referred to as art. Drawing is born out of a desire to grasp the mysterious forces of nature, life and the soul.

There are many modes of drawing which can be summarized into three general, overlapping categories: Realism (drawing as a visual record), Visualization (drawing the imagined), and the Symbolic (which includes ‘abstract’ drawing).

In my pencil drawing I am drawn more to the realistic mode of expression which is firmly rooted in the Renaissance tradition. Artists approach drawing in a combination of two possible means of expression: the Visual which is the construction of what is seen and the Haptic which relates the artist’s expression to personal subjective and tactile sensations.

Using two 19th Century artists as examples Degas was essentially a Visual artist; Van Gogh was given more to the Haptic mode. Both types are capable of producing great art.

Edgar Degas (1834-1917) was primarily a visual artist.	Vincent Van Gogh (1853- 1890) was a haptic artist.

Drawing is comprised of four elements of which all, or a few, can be present:

Line: The expressive quality of a line is determined on what the artist brings to the drawing in terms of temperament, skill and intent. Heavy, thick lines generally portend menace and emphasis whereas delicately thin, curving lines express a more whimsical intent. In realist pencil drawing lines define boundaries and tone (light/dark lines and cross-hatching, for example). The more skilled artist also imparts rhythm and movement.

Value: The ‘stretch’ of light to dark tones is referred to as Value in drawing. Visually powerful drawings fully utilize the ‘stretch’ of contrasting light and dark. Most beginners fail to achieve the ‘stretch’ which results in timid, washed-out drawings.

Texture: The tactile quality of the elements in a pencil drawing express the range of roughness or smoothness. The rough texture of a brick wall is different from the roughness of a stucco wall. The same goes for depicting drapery: one would not advisedly render silk with the texture of burlap in their pencil drawing.

Form: The illusion of three-dimensional form in art and drawing was central to Western art for centuries. The carving out of form using both structure and value was a critical component of the Renaissance. Oriental art and a significant portion of contemporary drawing emphasis flatness of space and form.

THE MIDDLE AGES (300 to 1300)

For a millennium, a thousand years, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the dawning of the early Renaissance little progress was made in the art of drawing. During these middle years, which include the dark ages, Western civilization as we know it was almost lost. The concepts of democracy, art and Christianity almost disappeared in Western Europe. All that we hold close and dear was pushed to the brink of extinction and for several centuries had only a toe-hold on the Isle of Man. Western Civilization’s most tenuous moment had it clinging onto a rock called Skellig Michael, eighteen miles off of the Irish coast.

Civilization is fragile. It is held together by the spirit of the Ideals: reason, justice and beauty. It is these Ideals that gave fruition to the Graeco-Roman world. And it is the gradual collapse of these Ideals that contribute to a civilization’s decline and extinction. The Roman Empire’s collapse encompassed almost 400 years. The Egyptian civilization lasted almost 5,000 years before it too gradually collapsed. A more accurate description of a civilization’s collapse would be exhaustion. Hopelessness, apathy and fear are the harbingers of exhaustion and collapse.

From that singular toe-hold in the North Atlantic, Western Civilization slowly grew hesitatingly outwards. Beginning with the urgent need to record all that was quickly being lost and destroyed, the monks of Ireland copied the Gospels and brought the art of illuminated manuscripts to stellar heights. The Book of Kells is the finest surviving example.

For the many thousands of years of Mediterranean civilization the human figure was central to art and drawing. By the end of the Middle Ages the human figure had almost disappeared from art.

Book of Kells (Monogram page, folio 34 recto), circa 800 A.D. (Irish)

THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE (1300 – 1600)

The rebirth of Greek and Roman concepts of art and drawing took its firmest root in Italy. Remnants of the Graeco-Roman civilization were still very much in evidence and scattered about the ground. The ‘barbarians’ of the Middle Ages did not so much destroy the Roman architecture and statuary as let it fall into disrepair.

The concepts of art and drawing had to be re-invented. Early Renaissance drawings stress the contour lines where value was indicated by simple rendering of light and dark to suggest form. To our modern eye, Early Renaissance drawings have an awkward and amateurish quality to them – but in a short period of time, only 150 years, as the necessary skill and knowledge was acquired for drawing – art blossomed to achievements not yet witnessed since.

It was in the early Renaissance that drawing established itself as the cornerstone of art. The role of drawing in art was stressed as an intellectual tool in the process and formulation of an artistic idea.

By the mid-Fifteenth Century figure drawing had progressed beyond the description of surface to an inquiry and subsequent understanding of the internal structure, the anatomy, of the human form. Drawings now had weight and three-dimensional form.

It was in the High Renaissance, from the last third of the Fifteenth Century into the early Sixteen Century that the art of drawing the human figure was first codified and structured for direct study from the live model. Initially models were the studio assistants (garzoni) and gradually female models were hired until by the early Sixteenth Century the hired model was common-place.

The apex of the High Renaissance lasted only 20 years from about 1500 to 1520. This was the period when the three great men of the Renaissance, da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael were at their peak. This short period, a blink of an eye in terms of the history of art and drawing, set the standard.

By the late Spring of 1520 both da Vinci and Raphael were dead. Michelangelo continued on for another 40 years.

Raphael, The Three Graces, circa 1517 Perhaps the finest practioner of the art of drawing was Rafaello Santi, better known as Raphael. Born in 1483 Raphael died young on Good Friday, 1520 at 37 years. Raphael's preferred drawing medium was sanguine conte, a hard, red chalk, that he used finely sharpened like a pencil. The Three Graces is a small drawing, measuring only 8 x 10" (exact dimensions are 203 x 258mm). This conte pencil drawing is a study for a large fresco, The Wedding Feast of Cupid and Psyche. The fresco was begun by Raphael's apprentices and executed poorly (using the high standards of the time as a guage). Raphael's intervention came too late to be of much help. Fresco commissions were generally workshop productions initially planned and composed by the Master Artist, somewhat like a highly skilled house-painting contractor today. The same model was used for all three poses. There are stylus markings (indentions drawn into the prepared paper with a metal, nail-like pencil) underneath the red conte which Raphael most likely used to establish the general proportions and placements of the figures.

Raphael, Study for the Alba Madonna

Leonardo da Vinci, Five Grotesque Heads

da Vinci (1452 - 1519) has long been seen as the fullest embodiment of the ideal of the Renaissance Man. His intellect and interests spanned the arts, sciences, invention, mechanics and philosophy. To further his study of art, drawing skill and knowledge, da Vinci was amongst the first to engage in the dissection of cadavers. His studies greatly advanced the art and science of anatomy. da Vinci was keenly interested in the relationships between the spiritual, moral and physical attributes of his subjects. Five Grotesque Heads is a small drawing rendered in pen with brown ink (bistre). It measures approximately 10 1/4" x 8 1/2". Five Grotesque Heads is a parable of worldiness. The drawing is thought to be a visualization of materialistic greed summed up by 'Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's'. The foremost figure, hard, knowing, and leaf-crowned appears to be the leader, patrician, of this group. He exemplifies the self-satisfied, comfortable with the power that comes with shrewdly promoted self-interest. The figure on the left is capricious and shrewd. On the right hand side of the drawing is a figure of connivance, greed and servility. The final two heads are embellishments of gleeful collaberation is some selfish venture being concocted by this group.

Michelangelo Buonarroti, Study for the Libyan Sybl

A man possessed of an explosive, fiery temper, Michelangelo (1475 -1564) was an enfant terrible of the worst kind. He was graced with success and fame early in his career. The conflicts and enmity between Michelangelo and da Vinci and Pope Julius II are legendary. Michelangelo was intensely disliked, hated even, by practically every artist in Rome and Florence. The commission for the Sistine Chapel was carefully steered through the Papal committee to ensure that Michelangelo would be awarded it. Primarily a sculptor, Michelangelo had limited experience as a fresco painter. It was hoped that Michelangelo would fail and be humbled. Even broken. The Sistine Chapel commission was originally to be only the twelve apostles and some decorative elements. Michelangelo saw otherwise. The work on the Sistine Chapel began badly. Dismayed by the work being done by his assistants he fired the lot of them. Destroyed all of the work they had finished and started anew. Four years, and over 400 life-size figures, later the Sistine Chapel was finished. Michelangelo was 37 and looked like an old man. The model for the Libyan Sybl was most likely a studio assistant, as was the practice of the time. Many of the models for the figures painted in the Sistine Chapel were studio assistants, but also local street people - thieves, beggars, prostitutes.

COMING SOON: THE NORTHERN RENAISSANCE

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