1 00:00:00,390 --> 00:00:06,300 Good evening, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, we are waiting for more chairs, but in order to save time, I thought I would do the introduction. 2 00:00:06,300 --> 00:00:11,400 Now, then we can all get seated. Then we can all enjoy plastic surgeons lecture. 3 00:00:11,400 --> 00:00:16,560 I'm also told by colleagues in the Maths Institute that if you all promise to come back next week, 4 00:00:16,560 --> 00:00:21,780 we can have the big lecture theatre and we'll all fit into it extremely comfortably. 5 00:00:21,780 --> 00:00:25,230 But we have some more chairs while colleagues are sending them out. 6 00:00:25,230 --> 00:00:27,600 I will continue to speak. 7 00:00:27,600 --> 00:00:37,620 So it's my privilege on behalf of the Slagle actors to welcome you all and to introduce this Yearsley lecturer, Professor David Exergen. 8 00:00:37,620 --> 00:00:42,360 He's professor of art and film history at the University of Leicester and is 9 00:00:42,360 --> 00:00:46,980 widely known as an international authority on Italian Renaissance painting. 10 00:00:46,980 --> 00:00:52,650 Just how widely known, I think, is gauged by the number of people very gratifyingly in the room. 11 00:00:52,650 --> 00:01:02,490 David has already published major monographs with Yale University Press on Correggio in 1998 and Parmigiani A. in 2008. 12 00:01:02,490 --> 00:01:10,650 He also has significant interest in the history of collecting, which have informed his work as an adviser to major auction houses, 13 00:01:10,650 --> 00:01:17,130 museums and galleries, including the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. 14 00:01:17,130 --> 00:01:25,410 He's a trustee of Art UK and Sir John Soren's Museum and a former trustee of the National Gallery and of Teet. 15 00:01:25,410 --> 00:01:28,650 Another of his areas of expertise is bronze sculpture. 16 00:01:28,650 --> 00:01:36,120 And it's this which formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 17 00:01:36,120 --> 00:01:43,530 The Royal Academy 2012 exhibition called Curated with Cecilia Greaves and simply called Bronze, 18 00:01:43,530 --> 00:01:51,690 was explicitly international in scope and innovative in its address to a single material across space and time. 19 00:01:51,690 --> 00:01:56,640 It drew international acclaim on almost a quarter of a million visitors. 20 00:01:56,640 --> 00:01:59,160 Almost as many people as appear to be in this room. 21 00:01:59,160 --> 00:02:09,180 And his book of the exhibition was described by The Wall Street Journal as the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year. 22 00:02:09,180 --> 00:02:14,470 And it went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication. 23 00:02:14,470 --> 00:02:20,700 Davidic Surgeon is also widely known as a critic and commentator on art and exhibitions. 24 00:02:20,700 --> 00:02:28,230 It's now exactly 20 years since the Italian renaissance provided the matter of a slide lecture series. 25 00:02:28,230 --> 00:02:34,080 Professor Exergen surgeon has two major research enterprises underway at present in this area. 26 00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:43,230 One being the Italian renaissance altarpiece between icon and narrative and the second being from drawing to painting in the Italian renaissance. 27 00:02:43,230 --> 00:02:53,160 And it's this second project which we are fortunate enough to have advanced access to in the form of the eight lectures he will deliver this term. 28 00:02:53,160 --> 00:02:59,070 Can I please ask you to note that after next week's lecture and we better lay in some more drink, 29 00:02:59,070 --> 00:03:06,870 there will be a reception just outside this lecture theatre, an opportunity for a glass of wine and general conversation. 30 00:03:06,870 --> 00:03:10,530 Finally, I'd like to thank colleagues in the history of art department. 31 00:03:10,530 --> 00:03:14,820 I'd like to thank our colleagues in the maths institute. But in the history of art department, 32 00:03:14,820 --> 00:03:22,950 I'd particularly like to thank Rachel Leach and Francesca set for work on the publicity and technical support of these lectures. 33 00:03:22,950 --> 00:03:27,420 And as they used to say in my youth. If you're all sitting comfortably, 34 00:03:27,420 --> 00:03:45,500 please welcome David Exergen to give the first of this year's Slaid lectures entitled Drawing in Italy Before Fifteen Hundred. 35 00:03:45,500 --> 00:03:53,120 Well, I must begin by thanking Craig and the electors for placing that trust in me. 36 00:03:53,120 --> 00:03:59,300 And before launching into my lecture, I just wanted to say one other thing, 37 00:03:59,300 --> 00:04:05,420 which is that I suspect there must have been people standing where I'm standing 38 00:04:05,420 --> 00:04:11,420 who said something along the lines of I never dreamt this would happen to me. 39 00:04:11,420 --> 00:04:15,020 I had three years as an undergraduate in Cambridge. 40 00:04:15,020 --> 00:04:23,360 I had three years as a junior research fellow at Bay Lil and four years at something called the Slade Fellow at Corpus. 41 00:04:23,360 --> 00:04:30,380 And I suspect, especially towards the end of all of that, I dreamt about this possibility quite a lot. 42 00:04:30,380 --> 00:04:37,970 So I can't claim never to have dreamt at all. 43 00:04:37,970 --> 00:04:45,260 Now everyone can draw. 44 00:04:45,260 --> 00:04:47,780 Lest we should forget that simple truth, 45 00:04:47,780 --> 00:04:58,010 this enchanting portrait by the early 16th century Veronese artist Jovanna Franchesco character may serve as an amusing reminder. 46 00:04:58,010 --> 00:05:08,630 What is more? And in spite of its subjects beaming pride in his creation, it also underlines the fact that some people are better at it than others. 47 00:05:08,630 --> 00:05:11,960 For the seven remaining weeks of this series of lectures, 48 00:05:11,960 --> 00:05:22,250 I will be exploring the achievements of what Miss Jean Brody would have called the crammed black them of Italian 16th century draughtsman, 49 00:05:22,250 --> 00:05:27,140 starting with Michelangelo and ending with an Ebola and Dagostino Karachi. 50 00:05:27,140 --> 00:05:34,100 And in each case, focussing on a single project and endeavouring to reconstruct its evolution, 51 00:05:34,100 --> 00:05:41,420 and in particular, the way in which the artists in question use drawings to make their paintings. 52 00:05:41,420 --> 00:05:53,060 One of the purposes of this introductory lecture is to explain the reasons why it is virtually impossible to start such a survey any earlier. 53 00:05:53,060 --> 00:06:05,180 In a sense, after all, drawing has always existed and anyone in possession of a stick or even a finger can make a drawing of a kind. 54 00:06:05,180 --> 00:06:14,990 I need hardly add that the ephemeral examples I'm showing you do not date from before the dawn of time, but are instead, respectively by Max Arnst, 55 00:06:14,990 --> 00:06:25,780 photographed by Brassai and by Goya in his portrait of the Duchess of Alba in the Hispanic Society in New York, 56 00:06:25,780 --> 00:06:31,280 where the conceit is that he signed in the sand. 57 00:06:31,280 --> 00:06:43,940 Intriguingly, the contract of thirty first of January, fifteen forty seven for the fur union artist Pomponio Maltravers signed and dated Altarpiece. 58 00:06:43,940 --> 00:06:47,900 Fifteen forty nine in the Paris Church at San Martino. 59 00:06:47,900 --> 00:06:53,540 I'll tell you, I meant top and that's what you see on the left required him to execute the 60 00:06:53,540 --> 00:07:00,160 work in conformity with the drawing he had made on the pavement of the church. 61 00:07:00,160 --> 00:07:07,250 And then on the right, Felicia Anjani followed the account and clearly the youngest natural history in order to 62 00:07:07,250 --> 00:07:15,410 reconstruct a different and only marginally more sophisticated imagining of the birth of art. 63 00:07:15,410 --> 00:07:24,790 As a rule, and not unreasonably, we associate drawing with paper and paper only came to be manufactured in Italy in the late 13th century. 64 00:07:24,790 --> 00:07:29,450 A mill was established in Fabiano in twelve seventy six and the city and the 65 00:07:29,450 --> 00:07:35,600 marker remains a noted centre of high quality paper production to this day. 66 00:07:35,600 --> 00:07:43,850 On the other hand, the history of drawing, or at the very least the history of line starts far, far earlier, 67 00:07:43,850 --> 00:07:53,450 especially if our understanding of what constitutes a drawing is not restrictively based upon the media employed to make the image and thus limited 68 00:07:53,450 --> 00:08:06,710 above all to productions in Inken Chalk and number of what are usually referred to as cave paintings might just as easily be called cave drawings. 69 00:08:06,710 --> 00:08:17,420 This one in the Chauvet Cave is dated to around thirty thousand to twenty eight thousand B.C. and Greek ceramics, 70 00:08:17,420 --> 00:08:21,450 such as these examples of black and red figure where by Zeke? 71 00:08:21,450 --> 00:08:29,090 Yes, on the left and Euphronios on the right are amongst the finest linear compositions ever created. 72 00:08:29,090 --> 00:08:38,390 Later on in antiquity, the Etruscans decorated both bronze she there and showing the figurine each there in the villa, 73 00:08:38,390 --> 00:08:44,600 Julia in Rome and mirrors indeed with exquisite narrative designs. 74 00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:57,350 At the same time, it's important to note that the almost miraculous survival of the ultimate doors papyrus only fully published as recently as 2006, 75 00:08:57,350 --> 00:09:01,820 which was written in the first century B.C., possibly in Alexandria, 76 00:09:01,820 --> 00:09:09,830 proves that the ancients also produced works corresponding to our standard conception of drawings. 77 00:09:09,830 --> 00:09:17,390 If one fast forwards the Middle Ages, yet more media come into play when it comes to enamelled. 78 00:09:17,390 --> 00:09:27,620 Nothing can rival the myriad scenes on Nicholas of days close to Nyberg, altar of around eleven eighty, in which I cannot resist pointing out. 79 00:09:27,620 --> 00:09:32,210 Should you go? There are a short train ride from Vienna. 80 00:09:32,210 --> 00:09:37,070 Nothing in the technique of VAO Igla Mesia. 81 00:09:37,070 --> 00:09:48,590 Quite compete. But here to the best pieces, such as these examples from the Victorian Albert Museum and the Metropolitan in New York are very fine. 82 00:09:48,590 --> 00:09:52,640 I've tried to stress the linear force of these inventions, 83 00:09:52,640 --> 00:09:56,810 but it would be a mistake to think that the defining feature of Italian Renaissance 84 00:09:56,810 --> 00:10:03,800 drawings is the fact that they are monochrome until the later part of the 16th century. 85 00:10:03,800 --> 00:10:11,180 Coloured drawings are rare indeed. However, this example by Bartolomeo Mantan. 86 00:10:11,180 --> 00:10:17,930 Yeah, which was sold at Christie's to whom I am most grateful for these images last summer, 87 00:10:17,930 --> 00:10:28,400 is a very finished compositional study for Fresco by him, which you see here of the martyrdom of Saint Blaise in Verona. 88 00:10:28,400 --> 00:10:33,760 Conversely, by the last quarter of the 16th century, Federico Braschi, 89 00:10:33,760 --> 00:10:40,490 whom I will be discussing in my seventh lecture, routinely made colour drawings in any event. 90 00:10:40,490 --> 00:10:49,710 It was always, of course, possible to add colour notes to such preliminary shapes as Danniella Darvel Terror did in 91 00:10:49,710 --> 00:10:55,070 the study in Black Chalk for his fresco of the assumption of the Virgin in Santa Anita, 92 00:10:55,070 --> 00:11:04,100 De'Monte in Rome, where the colours and initials for standing for the colours are inscribed in pen. 93 00:11:04,100 --> 00:11:12,350 An altogether more detailed approach was adopted by Benedetta Calegari in the Double-Sided Sheet, representing the continents of Scipio, 94 00:11:12,350 --> 00:11:25,460 where the main study is on the Recto and the colour notes or on the tracing of it on the VASSO, which explains the flipping of the image. 95 00:11:25,460 --> 00:11:29,660 One of the most thrilling innovations of the Italian renaissance was the 96 00:11:29,660 --> 00:11:34,580 virtual invention of what might be described as the thinking out loud drawing. 97 00:11:34,580 --> 00:11:42,800 By this, I mean those sheets where the artist is not only in power claeys memorable phrase, taking a line for a walk, 98 00:11:42,800 --> 00:11:49,970 but also exploring the possibilities of a given subject or motif, often at speed over time. 99 00:11:49,970 --> 00:11:58,160 This also led to the practise. I will be investigating in my subsequent lectures of executing whole sequences of drawings, 100 00:11:58,160 --> 00:12:04,850 above all for major projects and giving oneself the freedom to change one's mind. 101 00:12:04,850 --> 00:12:08,720 Contemporary commentators such as Georgia, Vasari and Giovannelli, 102 00:12:08,720 --> 00:12:16,340 Andre Julio were both very aware of the importance of these related developments 103 00:12:16,340 --> 00:12:22,310 in the introductory section of the second fifteen 68 edition of the Sari's Lives, 104 00:12:22,310 --> 00:12:24,980 which does not always include in translations. 105 00:12:24,980 --> 00:12:35,190 It begins by stating that DNA, which in Italian means both are words drawing and design is the father of architecture, sculpture and painting. 106 00:12:35,190 --> 00:12:40,250 And a few pages later goes on to explain that and I quote, 107 00:12:40,250 --> 00:12:48,660 We call sketches of first sort of drawing made to find the manner of the poses and the first composition of the work. 108 00:12:48,660 --> 00:12:53,700 And they are made in the form of a mark and represent a single draught of the whole. 109 00:12:53,700 --> 00:13:01,850 And because they are such swift expressions of the frenzy for raw is his word of the artist, whether in pen, 110 00:13:01,850 --> 00:13:08,420 charcoal or any other medium created simply in order to try to capture the spirit of his idea. 111 00:13:08,420 --> 00:13:17,270 We call them Skeets see sketches in the same spirit and is somewhat later treatise on sacred painting of 16 24. 112 00:13:17,270 --> 00:13:22,280 Federico Borromeo observes that and I quote again, colours are like words. 113 00:13:22,280 --> 00:13:28,430 Once the eyes see them, they sink into the mind, just as do words heard by the years. 114 00:13:28,430 --> 00:13:38,810 Correspondingly, making an initial sketch of a subject to be painted is like formulating the preliminary thoughts and arguments in the speech. 115 00:13:38,810 --> 00:13:49,550 Conversely, in his dialogue on the errors and abuses of painters of 50 and 64, G stresses the vital importance of artists making their cartoons. 116 00:13:49,550 --> 00:13:54,050 The term used for drawings executed on a scale of one to one for paintings, 117 00:13:54,050 --> 00:13:59,380 which derives from the Italian cuttone, is simply meaning big piece of paper. 118 00:13:59,380 --> 00:14:07,610 Their cartoon sketches or models should be made well in advance in order to have time to review them a hundred times, 119 00:14:07,610 --> 00:14:12,110 not as their father, but as that judge. 120 00:14:12,110 --> 00:14:21,650 Before going on to add that too. Before going on to add to them, subtract from them, amend and correct them. 121 00:14:21,650 --> 00:14:27,020 I could show you any number of examples of these practises from the 16th century. 122 00:14:27,020 --> 00:14:36,750 By which time it was fully established. But it seems to make sense to choose two groups of related sheets that are not only masterpieces by artists. 123 00:14:36,750 --> 00:14:49,080 Reappear in later weeks, but also, respectively, represent the two main purposes of such thinking out loud, namely thinking about content. 124 00:14:49,080 --> 00:14:59,670 What my two kind introducer, Craig Clunies, has called writing the idea and thinking about form before going any further. 125 00:14:59,670 --> 00:15:09,690 However, I must of course, add that many such drawings combine both these strands to begin with content. 126 00:15:09,690 --> 00:15:15,780 The first two sheets I'm showing you were both by Rafil and the first ideas for an altarpiece. 127 00:15:15,780 --> 00:15:21,240 One is an appropriately local drawing in the Ashmolean, while the other is in the loof. 128 00:15:21,240 --> 00:15:26,610 They represent two variations on the theme of the lamentation over the dead Christ, 129 00:15:26,610 --> 00:15:35,830 and their common source is a signed and dated altarpiece of fourteen ninety five by Raffles Master Perugino. 130 00:15:35,830 --> 00:15:43,310 Rafael's conception, which must date from a little over a decade later, is far from being a mere clone of terror genos. 131 00:15:43,310 --> 00:15:50,160 But the similarities between them are very considerable and might even have been legally imposed upon him by his patrons, 132 00:15:50,160 --> 00:15:59,250 not least since such modo at form, manner and form clauses are a common feature of contracts works of art in this period. 133 00:15:59,250 --> 00:16:06,300 Be that as it may, Rafil elected to rethink the subject dynamically. 134 00:16:06,300 --> 00:16:11,760 One result is a drawing in the British Museum on the left where the dead Christ is shown, 135 00:16:11,760 --> 00:16:20,430 lifted up and about to be transported to the tomb, which was further refined in a squared sheet in the FT. 136 00:16:20,430 --> 00:16:27,240 Even this, however, was not his last word in terms of the details. 137 00:16:27,240 --> 00:16:36,750 Since the final altarpiece of the entombment of 15 and seven, which you see turns, the figure of Mary Magdalene out of pure profile, 138 00:16:36,750 --> 00:16:45,930 removes her female companion and rejuvenates the now beardless courter at Christ's feet. 139 00:16:45,930 --> 00:16:52,890 A double sided sheet in the metropolitan dating from the 15 thirties is a good example of an artist in this case, 140 00:16:52,890 --> 00:16:59,640 Pamoja Annina, exploring different formal approaches without modifying the iconography of its conception. 141 00:16:59,640 --> 00:17:08,730 On one side of the sheet are no fewer than nine studies of Moses back to smash the tablets of the law matched. 142 00:17:08,730 --> 00:17:14,460 On the other side by nine eves in the main, reaching up for the apple of the temptation, 143 00:17:14,460 --> 00:17:23,520 none of them quite identical to the final solutions in the frescoes they prepare in the Church of Santa Maria, Dallas, Decatur in Palmer. 144 00:17:23,520 --> 00:17:30,000 On occasion, artists followed the same general procedure but concentrated on details. 145 00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:38,110 In connexion with his work on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo produced numerous studies of arms and hands, 146 00:17:38,110 --> 00:17:44,070 some of virtual variations on the same theme that could end up in different compositions. 147 00:17:44,070 --> 00:17:51,600 Thus, the arms in the black chalk sheet on the left are for two of the sons in the drunkenness of Noah, 148 00:17:51,600 --> 00:18:01,530 whereas on the right arm showing a near twin in red chalk, which is for God, creating Adam elsewhere. 149 00:18:01,530 --> 00:18:09,390 As, for instance, in another somewhat later drawing, Michelangelo explores various possibilities on a single sheet. 150 00:18:09,390 --> 00:18:20,910 They are preparatory studies, breathing virgin in an altarpiece of the peer tap in the TABO, which was shown at the National Gallery last year. 151 00:18:20,910 --> 00:18:27,180 The fact that the finished work is by Michelangelo is associate Sebastiano del Pumbaa may serve 152 00:18:27,180 --> 00:18:35,670 as a useful reminder that the authors of drawings need not be responsible for related paintings. 153 00:18:35,670 --> 00:18:42,600 It's no coincidence, incidentally, that the close ups in this sequence were executed in chalk, 154 00:18:42,600 --> 00:18:50,250 whereas Penn was generally employed for first ideas and studies of whole compositions. 155 00:18:50,250 --> 00:18:58,350 As has been indicated by the first decades of the 16th century, such practises were fairly standard in most but not all parts of Italy. 156 00:18:58,350 --> 00:19:06,020 Yet it was not ever thus. The idea of making drawings in order to make paintings had to come into being, 157 00:19:06,020 --> 00:19:12,090 and I will be devoting most of the rest of my lecture to outlining its gradual emergence, 158 00:19:12,090 --> 00:19:19,560 according to John Pope Hennessy, a former occupant of this chair, in provocatively reductionist vain. 159 00:19:19,560 --> 00:19:23,280 The study of Omarska drawings is a means to an end. 160 00:19:23,280 --> 00:19:34,230 Enthralling as the individual feats may be, their importance resides in what they tell us about the creative procedure of an artist. 161 00:19:34,230 --> 00:19:40,840 However, even he admitted they could be. Trawling, which is presumably why he collected them. 162 00:19:40,840 --> 00:19:46,990 Moreover, for all the fascination of the palimpsest like manuscript come TypeScript of 163 00:19:46,990 --> 00:19:52,800 the Wasteland or indeed the most impassioned of Beethoven's autograph scores, 164 00:19:52,800 --> 00:19:58,660 it cannot begin to compare with sheets such as these. 165 00:19:58,660 --> 00:20:05,770 One of the major problems about trying to understand such creative procedures is that only a lamentably 166 00:20:05,770 --> 00:20:11,620 small percentage of Renaissance drawings have survived and that the were demonstrate blee once many, 167 00:20:11,620 --> 00:20:16,300 many more to borrow the title of an article I recently published on the subject. 168 00:20:16,300 --> 00:20:25,840 What is left is the tip of the iceberg. It is pretty scant consolation that a number of sea not peer under drawings 169 00:20:25,840 --> 00:20:30,300 for frescoes such as this one dating from the fourteen twenties by Mazzilli, 170 00:20:30,300 --> 00:20:37,990 know his martyrdom of Saint Catherine in San Clemente and Rome have been uncovered in recent decades. 171 00:20:37,990 --> 00:20:47,020 There also exist some drawings on the reverse of panels which were never intended to be seen, such as this. 172 00:20:47,020 --> 00:20:52,240 Marv's in the earlier Madonna and Child by an associate of Spinello, Aria Teno. 173 00:20:52,240 --> 00:21:00,940 There was at Christie's in London last July. One way to prove how much has gone missing is by looking at the documentary evidence, 174 00:21:00,940 --> 00:21:06,870 not least in the form of wills to 15th century wills of painters so utterly obscure 175 00:21:06,870 --> 00:21:12,310 that no works by them are known to survive were both drawn up in ordinaire. 176 00:21:12,310 --> 00:21:16,160 On the fourth of September 14 36, the will of one man could do. 177 00:21:16,160 --> 00:21:25,510 Daniela leaves his drawings to his pupil. Familiarity is the word Georgia and everything else to his wife. 178 00:21:25,510 --> 00:21:35,200 Similarly, on the 21st of August 14 43, the will of Master Antonia, the painter, the son of Master Leonardo, the painter, requires that his heirs, 179 00:21:35,200 --> 00:21:37,390 namely his wife and two sons, 180 00:21:37,390 --> 00:21:47,890 cannot and must neither sell nor distribute either the drawings of his art or anything else relating to that art, but must retain them. 181 00:21:47,890 --> 00:21:52,210 It seems important to underline that both artists were active in northern Italy, 182 00:21:52,210 --> 00:21:57,490 where it is widely assumed the practise of drawing was altogether less common than in central Italy, 183 00:21:57,490 --> 00:22:05,710 especially in the 15th century, and that their wills prove they must have had numbers of drawings and not just a handful. 184 00:22:05,710 --> 00:22:15,790 This desire to preserve drawings within the workshop explicitly as tools of the trade ultimately led to them being collected. 185 00:22:15,790 --> 00:22:25,450 Thus, Marcantonio Mikael's notebooks record no fewer than 11 books of drawings in the possession of Gabrielle live and remain the owner, 186 00:22:25,450 --> 00:22:30,430 amongst other treasures of George Jonas Tempest in 15 30. 187 00:22:30,430 --> 00:22:38,140 Tellingly, only one book of drawings by Jacobo Bellini, now in the British Museum, 188 00:22:38,140 --> 00:22:47,710 which is described as the big book of drawings on Bomba Zeine, which is a kind of fabric paper in LED Point still exists. 189 00:22:47,710 --> 00:22:50,200 All the others have perished self. 190 00:22:50,200 --> 00:22:59,460 Evidently the habit of keeping drawings together, especially in books, resulted in survive of being a matter of all or nothing with nothing. 191 00:22:59,460 --> 00:23:04,620 Alas, usually triumphing. 192 00:23:04,620 --> 00:23:13,500 Artists also learnt both from original drawings by their fellow artists and from copies after paintings in other cities drawing copies. 193 00:23:13,500 --> 00:23:18,570 Thus, a beautiful early Leonardo drawing of a lady with a unicorn. 194 00:23:18,570 --> 00:23:28,680 This one near me here in the smolan, which evolved from a more summery study in the British Museum, inspired at least to later 16th century works. 195 00:23:28,680 --> 00:23:35,070 In spite of the fact that it was executed almost before Leonardo had achieved a signature style, 196 00:23:35,070 --> 00:23:40,890 the earlier of the two is an engraving from the Circle of Raffles associate Mark and Turn Your Eye. 197 00:23:40,890 --> 00:23:44,850 Mondy here reversed for ease of comparison. Well, 198 00:23:44,850 --> 00:23:54,270 The Later is a painting by Luke a long way in the castle Sant'Angelo and right only marginally less unexpected 199 00:23:54,270 --> 00:24:03,630 is the use of one of Leonardo's studies of horses for his abandoned mural for the Battle of Anghiari, 200 00:24:03,630 --> 00:24:07,620 which was borrowed by Bernardino Lamina for his fresco of St. 201 00:24:07,620 --> 00:24:16,290 George and the Dragon in San Stembridge in Milan. In both instances, there are differences between the models and their emulations, 202 00:24:16,290 --> 00:24:23,340 which may suggest that the once existed more resolved versions of these inventions by Leonardo. 203 00:24:23,340 --> 00:24:29,060 But what is clear is that neither ever became a finished painting, 204 00:24:29,060 --> 00:24:36,960 turning the request for copy drawings and now lost letter written to a correspondent in Rome on the twenty ninth of November 15. 205 00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:49,000 Fifty nine by Layli or C came from Nova Lara in northern Italy, asked him to send drawings after Michelangelo's frescoes in the Capella. 206 00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:51,000 Lena in the Vatican. 207 00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:59,790 No doubt, in connexion with his own plans for what appears to have been a projected but never completed altarpiece of the conversion of St. 208 00:24:59,790 --> 00:25:12,570 Paul, for which there survived two highly evolved but very different compositional studies respectively in the Ashmolean here and in the Loof. 209 00:25:12,570 --> 00:25:20,370 In an autobiographical fragment, Rafael Luder Monte Lupo relates that he lost all the drawings he had made of the antiquities of the 210 00:25:20,370 --> 00:25:28,260 Eternal City during the sack of Rome in fifteen twenty seven care or No Assai of which there were many. 211 00:25:28,260 --> 00:25:34,880 And as will be discussed next week, Michelangelo made bonfires of hundreds of his drawings. 212 00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:40,050 Five hundred years is a long time for a bit of paper to survive. 213 00:25:40,050 --> 00:25:45,600 The other crucial factor before around fifteen hundred is likely to have been a lack of interest on the 214 00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:54,120 part of collectors who in all probability regarded drawings as means to an end and not as works of art. 215 00:25:54,120 --> 00:25:58,020 In his conversations with Picasso of nineteen sixty four, 216 00:25:58,020 --> 00:26:06,160 Brassai quotes Picasso as pronouncing that when it comes to drawing, nothing is better than the first sketch. 217 00:26:06,160 --> 00:26:11,980 But such an idea would not have occurred to anyone in the Kwacha Magenta. 218 00:26:11,980 --> 00:26:16,060 If we go all the way back to the first half of the 14th century, 219 00:26:16,060 --> 00:26:23,170 the number of extant drawings is startlingly few, but provided there is a related painting. 220 00:26:23,170 --> 00:26:32,410 It does sometimes seem possible to establish whether they are preliminary studies or subsequent derivations. 221 00:26:32,410 --> 00:26:40,930 In the case of a drawing in the Ft. Sea of the Visitacion, the links with the fresco in the lower church to C.C. from the school of Jotter, 222 00:26:40,930 --> 00:26:50,740 a plain enough and the differences between them are so minimal that it seems reasonable to suppose that the drawing derives from the fresco. 223 00:26:50,740 --> 00:26:56,680 Conversely, when the drawing of the presentation of the Virgin is compared with the celebrated fresco 224 00:26:56,680 --> 00:27:01,690 of the same subject in the Baron Shelley Chapel in Santa Croce in Florence by today, 225 00:27:01,690 --> 00:27:09,280 Gaddi, it's apparent that for all the general similarities, there are significant changes of mind here, too. 226 00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:13,240 It is impossible to speak of absolute proof concerning which came first. 227 00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:20,770 But this changes strike me as subtle improvements, just the kind and artists of today of stature might have made. 228 00:27:20,770 --> 00:27:29,080 In both cases, the degree of finish of the sheets means that they have on occasion been presumed to be what are known as contract drawings. 229 00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:37,660 The fact that such drawings existed as well attested for the simple reason that they are not infrequently referred to in legal contracts. 230 00:27:37,660 --> 00:27:46,510 But the number of unimpeachable survivors is tragically small, and they all most all date from well after fifteen hundred. 231 00:27:46,510 --> 00:27:59,230 One example, which was published in nineteen oh eight within the activity Statter in Panama and was exhibited in 1935 but is now lost. 232 00:27:59,230 --> 00:28:10,510 If anybody knows where it is. See me afterwards. Nevertheless, a faithful copy of it was made in 1883 by somebody called Domenico Muti. 233 00:28:10,510 --> 00:28:14,010 And that's the sort of bottom centre one. 234 00:28:14,010 --> 00:28:22,150 It relates to frescoes by Jerusalem and Mazzarella Badali for the vault of the choir of the city's cathedral and is highly finished. 235 00:28:22,150 --> 00:28:29,630 But even so, not absolutely followed on the vault, in spite of the fact that the contract of the 5th of April 15th, 236 00:28:29,630 --> 00:28:34,480 38 requires that I quote, within the compartments of triangular form, 237 00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:39,760 this painting has to do everything contained in the drawing given by him and included here 238 00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:48,710 in in the event the notion of including trumpet playing angels must have evolved later on. 239 00:28:48,710 --> 00:28:56,890 Sorry. And the existing drawings for them must have been executed after seemingly in defiance of the contract. 240 00:28:56,890 --> 00:29:06,850 Intriguingly, the copy is accompanied by two additional pages with unexpectedly free sketches from the vault and the apps you see even on the left, 241 00:29:06,850 --> 00:29:14,230 which it is tempting to imagine the artist scribbling down during the course of the meeting with his patrons. 242 00:29:14,230 --> 00:29:16,960 There is nothing especially surprising about these changes, 243 00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:25,750 since it seems obvious that only the most stubborn of patrons would have refused to countenance what the artist regarded as improvement. 244 00:29:25,750 --> 00:29:37,280 Another similar sorry, another incontrovertible contract drawing from towards the end of the century reveals similar divergences from the end product. 245 00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:43,060 And in this instance, the possibility of such changes of mind is built into the contract. 246 00:29:43,060 --> 00:29:48,400 The drawing in question, which is by Francesco Vampy, is connected with his old piece of St. 247 00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:52,750 And same as baptising the people of Siena for Siena Cathedral. 248 00:29:52,750 --> 00:30:01,900 Now, in the church, Santa assumed that the drawing has an autograph declaration written by Vanney and countersigned 249 00:30:01,900 --> 00:30:07,900 by a cathedral official on its VASSO that refers the contract for the altarpiece, 250 00:30:07,900 --> 00:30:16,480 which was drawn up on the 15th of June. Fifteen ninety three and Vanney is required to execute the altarpiece and I quote in which is to be 251 00:30:16,480 --> 00:30:23,110 painted in the lower half the story of when Saint and Saints baptised Siena and in the upper half, 252 00:30:23,110 --> 00:30:29,110 the Virgin recommending the city to God, her son, in accordance with the drawing by his hand, 253 00:30:29,110 --> 00:30:39,310 which he has left in the cathedral works which drawing he may improve or expand upon in accordance with the good rules of his art. 254 00:30:39,310 --> 00:30:43,990 Here again, the differences are so numerous. I do not have time to chronicle them. 255 00:30:43,990 --> 00:30:50,260 But one of the emissions from the painting is of particular interest in the drawing. 256 00:30:50,260 --> 00:30:58,510 The kneeling by in the left foreground represents a hitherto unrecognised quotation from an engraving by Augustine of Karachi. 257 00:30:58,510 --> 00:31:07,260 After all, that's your son making is altarpiece of the presentation in the temple in the Basilica of San Giacomo Majaw in Bologna. 258 00:31:07,260 --> 00:31:16,440 But the boy was subsequently dropped. Then his altarpiece was one of a pair with an activity by Alesandro Calves or Lannie. 259 00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:22,410 It was given a similarly free hand to adapt the now lost drawing he had provided. 260 00:31:22,410 --> 00:31:26,850 The phrase in the contract is that it should be in conformity with the sketch. 261 00:31:26,850 --> 00:31:35,970 He is brought to his most excellent reverence, which may be made better, but not worse. 262 00:31:35,970 --> 00:31:40,410 I should hope so. A very different contract drawing by look at can be AASA. 263 00:31:40,410 --> 00:31:45,210 Now in Berlin, which you see on the right, is an altogether more schematic effort, 264 00:31:45,210 --> 00:31:52,950 which includes the design for the altar pieces frame and a scratchy inscription penned by the artist it reads. 265 00:31:52,950 --> 00:31:58,810 This is the sketch which I look at can be areso have made for you, mister, and turn your Rossow. 266 00:31:58,810 --> 00:32:06,360 And I promise to make the altarpiece in conformity with it. I look, I can be AASA set against the drawing by vanity. 267 00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:11,220 It serves to underline the range of possible approaches that might be adopted and 268 00:32:11,220 --> 00:32:16,980 demonstrates once and for all that not all contract drawings were highly finished. 269 00:32:16,980 --> 00:32:23,700 Drawings must also, on occasion, have served the purpose of demonstrating the artistic competence of the painter in question, 270 00:32:23,700 --> 00:32:27,030 as well as the suitability of their invention. 271 00:32:27,030 --> 00:32:36,410 Few patrons, however, can have been as exacting as the authorities at some Mikail evolved terror on the 19th of May 14 42. 272 00:32:36,410 --> 00:32:42,810 The Sudanese painter Greenmount, like WJR, was commissioned to paint the high altarpiece of their church. 273 00:32:42,810 --> 00:32:50,530 But and I quote And because in Volterra, nothing is known except by repute of his mastery, 274 00:32:50,530 --> 00:32:59,220 said Master Primo is content before starting to paint, said panel to make and paint on the panel one or more figures. 275 00:32:59,220 --> 00:33:08,100 At the instance of those who require it, or indeed for himself to give visible proof of his mastery. 276 00:33:08,100 --> 00:33:18,330 Moreover, a document of the 5th of September 15 10 reveals Perugino, who was one of the most celebrated painters in all Italy by that date, 277 00:33:18,330 --> 00:33:26,310 having to go through an arbitration process over his Nativity of the Virgin altarpiece for San Francesco in C.M.A, 278 00:33:26,310 --> 00:33:30,140 which, alas, was lost in a fire in sixteen fifty five. 279 00:33:30,140 --> 00:33:36,900 So I contracted in the event four of his fellow artists found for him against his patrons, 280 00:33:36,900 --> 00:33:43,890 but only having, quote, seen the contract for the painting and the timeframe given in it. 281 00:33:43,890 --> 00:33:52,000 Having seen the cartoon and the CalFed on Chino, the little cartoon that is and the finished painting, 282 00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:58,390 a further insight into the commissioning process is afforded by a document of the 2nd of February 16. 283 00:33:58,390 --> 00:34:06,920 No. Three see an style in which two members of the confraternity of San got Tandoor together with the camera lingo. 284 00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:12,780 Are the steward a given authority to be able to make to be made? 285 00:34:12,780 --> 00:34:21,330 Various sorts of drawings and inventions from various painters in order to have made the painting for our chapel. 286 00:34:21,330 --> 00:34:32,190 This accords with the reference made to his drawings in the plural in the contract of the 11th April 15 73 for Bernardino, 287 00:34:32,190 --> 00:34:40,800 Gatti's assumption of the Virgin Altarpiece in Cremona Cathedral to return at last request for thinking out loud drawings. 288 00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:49,350 It has to be admitted. The first half of the 15th century is not that much more fertile territory than the 14th. 289 00:34:49,350 --> 00:34:55,170 There is a magnificent drawing in the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge connected with Franjieh Alekos, 290 00:34:55,170 --> 00:35:02,040 the position at Sammarco in Florence, whose status has been much debated. 291 00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:11,520 However, and in spite of its closeness to the painting and the touches of Red and Kreiss Halo and the blood issuing from his wounds. 292 00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:20,340 I am convinced it was part of the artist preparatory process as opposed to some species of repeat. 293 00:35:20,340 --> 00:35:29,910 On the other hand, it is absolutely plain that Peter Mallows chilling drawings of hanged man are first ideas, not afterthoughts. 294 00:35:29,910 --> 00:35:33,240 And indeed one of them, the one on the left, 295 00:35:33,240 --> 00:35:40,470 gives every indication of having been studied from a workshop assistant posed in the attitude of one of the unfortunates. 296 00:35:40,470 --> 00:35:45,780 The artist had previously observed dangling from a gibbet. 297 00:35:45,780 --> 00:35:53,310 In this instance, the sole complication is the probability that he drew them almost to the sheer macabre joy of it, 298 00:35:53,310 --> 00:36:03,300 and only then inserted them into the background of his fresco of St George and the princess in Verona. 299 00:36:03,300 --> 00:36:10,580 In any event, the fact that on occasion, PE's Anello also drew even more spontaneous. 300 00:36:10,580 --> 00:36:20,720 When preparing pictures is proved by his wonderfully bindery Penn study for the eponymous hero of his St. It's in the National Gallery. 301 00:36:20,720 --> 00:36:28,920 Another blatantly exploratory sequence of studies from the first half of the 15th century is found on Ghiberti sheet in the Arbat. 302 00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:36,410 Tina in Vienna for the scene of the flagellation on the earlier of his two baptistery doors in Florence, 303 00:36:36,410 --> 00:36:41,960 which was installed in 14 24 but had in all likelihood been completed. 304 00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:48,440 Apart from the amazingly lengthy process of gilding by fourteen fifteen. 305 00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:54,680 Not only are all five studies of the two flatulence rendered with a quivering exploratory line, 306 00:36:54,680 --> 00:37:02,630 but moreover only the middle figure of the upper registe really even close to his counterpart on the actual door. 307 00:37:02,630 --> 00:37:07,970 By the second half the 15th century, this kind of drawing was becoming increasingly common. 308 00:37:07,970 --> 00:37:10,640 But it will only be with Leonardo, 309 00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:19,310 with whom I will conclude that it is possible to begin to follow the evolution of a single work across a substantial group of drawings. 310 00:37:19,310 --> 00:37:25,790 Nevertheless, in the case of at least one artist of the previous generation and Drammen tenure, 311 00:37:25,790 --> 00:37:31,190 there are two projects which are exist, multiple studies to begin with. 312 00:37:31,190 --> 00:37:35,810 I'm showing two sheets seemingly intended to prepare a composition which either 313 00:37:35,810 --> 00:37:40,970 never led to a painting or were first ideas for one that has not survived. 314 00:37:40,970 --> 00:37:47,780 It involved a row of saints possibly intended to flank or surround a virgin and child. 315 00:37:47,780 --> 00:37:59,640 Turning to the second project, it's now generally agreed that two Double-Sided drawings with studies of the entombment of Christ 316 00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:09,270 are both by man tenure and our preparations for his engraving of the entombment with two birds. 317 00:38:09,270 --> 00:38:17,100 Sorry, with all the intimate with Fort Hood. 318 00:38:17,100 --> 00:38:23,040 Between them, they include three studies of the dead Christ and one for the entire group around the tomb. 319 00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:34,320 To them may now be added another double sided drawing, which was sold at auction in Prato in November 2013. 320 00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:38,240 It adds another three studies of remarkable intensity. 321 00:38:38,240 --> 00:38:45,750 But one of the most striking aspects of the whole series is that the attitudes of only one or two of the figures in them, 322 00:38:45,750 --> 00:38:53,080 even allowing for changes of identity and gender, truly foreshadow their equivalents in print. 323 00:38:53,080 --> 00:39:02,370 Another North Italian artist active in the second half of the 15th century by whom a number of drawings are known, is Victoria Patcher. 324 00:39:02,370 --> 00:39:07,800 They range from freely handled compositional studies such as this one for a painting in 325 00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:14,550 Avignon to highly finished studies of individual figures and close ups of their heads, 326 00:39:14,550 --> 00:39:24,360 including those on the Double-Sided Sheet in the Ashmolean for his old piece of the apotheosis of Saint Ursula. 327 00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:29,700 As the 16th century draws to a close and Reddell Iraqiya, Domenico and Di and Lucas senior rally, 328 00:39:29,700 --> 00:39:39,090 the artists who were to inspire Leonardo and Michelangelo, the titans of the next generation, were paving the way for their innovations in drawing. 329 00:39:39,090 --> 00:39:46,520 In the case of Iraq here, the two most important aspects of his practise as a draughtsman for the teenager, 330 00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:53,010 Leonardo, were his flowing Lee exploratory pen studies, notably of Puti. 331 00:39:53,010 --> 00:40:00,720 I'm showing you one side of a double sided sheet in the loop here on the left and his spectacularly refined head 332 00:40:00,720 --> 00:40:09,660 studies in black chalk of which this example at Christchurch here in Oxford is surely the most irresistible. 333 00:40:09,660 --> 00:40:18,420 Just how close the young Leonardo was to Viraj here is underlined by another drawing of a female head. 334 00:40:18,420 --> 00:40:26,700 This time in Metal Point, heightened with white on rose prepared paper, which has been given to both of them. 335 00:40:26,700 --> 00:40:30,330 Personally, I cannot see Leonardo's genius in it, 336 00:40:30,330 --> 00:40:42,200 but it is inconceivable that it was not the point of departure for the head of the protagonist in Leonardo's early Madonna in Munich. 337 00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:48,530 Domenica again, and Di was a prolific draughtsman for the period and left an unusually large number of compositional studies. 338 00:40:48,530 --> 00:40:59,660 Some of these, such as this one for his birth of the Virgin in Sound from Novella, are, um, and Li schematic, while others, 339 00:40:59,660 --> 00:41:08,610 such as a sheet for the naming of the Baptist in the same fresco cycle are altogether more resolved at the same time. 340 00:41:08,610 --> 00:41:19,130 And I also produced a number of wiry crosshatch pen drawings for individual figures such as this servant girl pouring water. 341 00:41:19,130 --> 00:41:29,120 Likewise for the birth of the Virgin. Not to mention exquisitely finished head studies, variously in Metal Point, 342 00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:37,490 heightened with white on coloured paper and in black chalk for attendant figures in the same fresco. 343 00:41:37,490 --> 00:41:46,160 If Guillard, Otome, Michelangelo, amongst so many other things, how to plan compositions and will depen, then senior rally was his great precursor. 344 00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:54,920 In the study of muscular male anatomy and a master in the use of chalk, still something of a novelty. 345 00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:57,410 Around fifteen hundred. 346 00:41:57,410 --> 00:42:06,590 He also evidently represented a model in the infinite capacity for taking pains stakes in spite of the fact that he ultimately slightly changed his 347 00:42:06,590 --> 00:42:18,290 mind in the fresco it must be associated with this black chalk drawing is clearly a study for one of Christ's tormentors in his flagellation at Modra. 348 00:42:18,290 --> 00:42:27,680 Yet when he executed a smaller scale version of the same subject on panel, he evidently really studied the figure of Christ, 349 00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:39,530 reversing his prose in another black chalk drawing, which you see, and which, like the second painting, like this painting is lit from the right. 350 00:42:39,530 --> 00:42:53,030 Most European art is lit from the left. Leonardo is the first artist from whose hand a genuine sequence of extant drawings for a particular painting. 351 00:42:53,030 --> 00:42:59,060 The Benwell, Madonna and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, which must date from the late 14th 70s, 352 00:42:59,060 --> 00:43:06,080 has survived, although bizarrely, the fact that they all belong together has not really been acknowledged. 353 00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:14,510 They are very much first. Ideas are, without exception, executed either in pen and ink or pen and wash. 354 00:43:14,510 --> 00:43:22,700 Some of them are double sided sheet in the British Museum and the rector of the lady with the Unicorn study I showed earlier, 355 00:43:22,700 --> 00:43:30,170 as well as a page in the music Bonnar at bay on comprise multiple studies of 356 00:43:30,170 --> 00:43:35,060 the Christ child playing with a cat on occasion in the company of his mother, 357 00:43:35,060 --> 00:43:43,430 and their quicksilver touch suggests they were sketched after careful observation from life. 358 00:43:43,430 --> 00:43:53,870 Anyone who has seen a child unwittingly tormenting a cat above all by not letting it escape their clutches will instantly recognise this scenario. 359 00:43:53,870 --> 00:44:05,330 Although in one vignette on the left hand side here, the cat does appear to be arching its back in delight as it is tricked. 360 00:44:05,330 --> 00:44:15,710 Others are drawing in a private collection in New York on the left and another in your feet see a single studies of the virgin and child. 361 00:44:15,710 --> 00:44:20,960 By this point in their evolution, the child is established on his mother's lap. 362 00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:28,260 One of her arms, which is bent in at the elbow, holds him tight and she looks down protectively in a vibrant, 363 00:44:28,260 --> 00:44:32,390 double sided daddy again in the British Museum. 364 00:44:32,390 --> 00:44:38,380 The recto shows the virgin and child with the cat in front in front of an arched window, 365 00:44:38,380 --> 00:44:46,400 and the whole composition is almost claustrophobic, enclosed within an arch in the more experimental study. 366 00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:57,110 On the reverse, the design is flipped and in the top left hand corner of the sheet, the anad is drawn and impulse block as will emerge shortly. 367 00:44:57,110 --> 00:45:04,430 The impulse bot block is of particular interest in terms of where this is all leading. 368 00:45:04,430 --> 00:45:09,920 It has been suggested that the justification for the presence of the cat was a 369 00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:16,040 legend that told of a cat giving birth at the same time as the Virgin Mary. 370 00:45:16,040 --> 00:45:26,710 Be that as it may. What is clear from x rays and Infra-Red is available on the Internet, but on downloadable and alas. 371 00:45:26,710 --> 00:45:34,790 So you have to go and find them. Is that this painting in the Bresser in Milan by a pupil or close follower of Leonardo, 372 00:45:34,790 --> 00:45:38,840 which is directly inspired by the drawing in the New York private collection? 373 00:45:38,840 --> 00:45:47,760 Or some variant of it? This painting initially showed a cat which was replaced by the more conventional lamb. 374 00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:57,030 We see today, it may be that in the end, the idea of including the cat was too quirky, even for Leonardo. 375 00:45:57,030 --> 00:45:59,790 Although later on in the 16th century, 376 00:45:59,790 --> 00:46:09,660 both Julia Romano on the left and barratry on the right included cats in Madonna pictures without getting into trouble in any event. 377 00:46:09,660 --> 00:46:16,890 There follows a single sheet in which he explores the notion of showing the child stretching out his right hand 378 00:46:16,890 --> 00:46:27,820 in the direction of a windmill tie on another drawing in the British Museum before flying out a solution. 379 00:46:27,820 --> 00:46:37,710 Sorry. In which the Virgin appears to be popping food into her son's mouth in the form of a pair of studies on its reverse. 380 00:46:37,710 --> 00:46:47,600 The more finished of which again repeats the arched framing and represents the virgin holding a flower or flowers in her left hand. 381 00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:55,560 He then refines the pose both figures in a sheet in the Louv in which the child 382 00:46:55,560 --> 00:47:00,080 is represented in profile and is feeding his mother fruit from the shallow bowl. 383 00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:02,730 She is holding in her right hand. 384 00:47:02,730 --> 00:47:11,430 These last three drawings are universally acknowledged to be studies for the Benowa Madonna, which is obviously the one you're seeing. 385 00:47:11,430 --> 00:47:16,500 But it is weirdly proposed that the other sheets of preparatory studies have exactly 386 00:47:16,500 --> 00:47:23,130 the same date for a now lost or conceivably never completed Madonna of the cat. 387 00:47:23,130 --> 00:47:33,000 This really is one of those cases when Ockham's Razor comes into its own looking at the double sided British Museum sheet next to the Benwell Madonna. 388 00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:39,060 The attitude of the Virgin, the arched format, the round topped window with impost and all, 389 00:47:39,060 --> 00:47:45,720 it seems blindingly obvious that the one led directly to the other. 390 00:47:45,720 --> 00:47:55,020 What makes these drawings so thrilling is that they give us a miraculous, time defying sense that we are looking over Leonardo's shoulder. 391 00:47:55,020 --> 00:48:04,860 The other overwhelming feeling one has is that for Leonardo, making them was the absolute opposite of the slavery of a nine to five job. 392 00:48:04,860 --> 00:48:09,840 It is no coincidence that both the rise in the status of artists and the 393 00:48:09,840 --> 00:48:16,050 practise of the collecting of drawings should have come to pass in this period. 394 00:48:16,050 --> 00:48:25,740 The act of drawing was part of a complex development would gradually lead to an acceptance on both sides of the divide that artists, 395 00:48:25,740 --> 00:48:30,720 not patrons, might at least sometimes know best. 396 00:48:30,720 --> 00:48:38,430 The extent to which artists thought about subject matter as well as form will be a major theme of these lectures, 397 00:48:38,430 --> 00:48:47,510 and there is fascinating evidence in support of such an approach from contemporary sources. 398 00:48:47,510 --> 00:48:51,020 In his biography of Geovanni Antonio Sol Yamli, 399 00:48:51,020 --> 00:49:00,020 Fusari relates how the artist wanted to paint a fresco of the feeding of the 5000 for the Dominican friars at San Marco in Florence. 400 00:49:00,020 --> 00:49:03,770 And had already made a drawing of that subject. 401 00:49:03,770 --> 00:49:11,510 When he was instead forced to execute a representation of the Panis Angelica's, which he did, and I quote, 402 00:49:11,510 --> 00:49:20,810 most cleanly and with diligence, and this is a drawing of that subject by Sol Yamey above and the palace, Angelica's down below. 403 00:49:20,810 --> 00:49:26,630 The finished work, which is dated 15 and 36, survives. 404 00:49:26,630 --> 00:49:34,430 So we may judge how well he coped. But Vasari adds a crucial comment, and I quote. 405 00:49:34,430 --> 00:49:41,570 But it would have been a much greater success for Sajani if he had executed his own design, 406 00:49:41,570 --> 00:49:48,170 because painters do better by expressing their own conceptions than those of others. 407 00:49:48,170 --> 00:49:58,520 Towards the end of the 15th century, the almost dementedly quirky but to me irresistible Umbrian artist Nikolo Folino, 408 00:49:58,520 --> 00:50:03,950 known as Laloux No, boldly stated his claim to be taken seriously. 409 00:50:03,950 --> 00:50:17,270 In an extraordinary and as far as I can see, almost totally ignored inscription in elegiac couplets on a per della dated fourteen ninety two. 410 00:50:17,270 --> 00:50:25,720 Whose translation I owe to my dear friend, Professor Stephen Harrison of this parish, so to speak, from Corpus. 411 00:50:25,720 --> 00:50:35,150 The poor Della in question is now in the loop. While the main part of the Nativity politica, which it originally belonged up above, 412 00:50:35,150 --> 00:50:40,790 remains in the Tractions and Nicolau it at four línea for which it was made. 413 00:50:40,790 --> 00:50:49,640 And this is the bit with the inscription. The inscription translates as follows to the reader. 414 00:50:49,640 --> 00:50:50,660 The late Bresee, 415 00:50:50,660 --> 00:51:02,360 the pious lady has left in her will that this noble work should be painted o gift to pleasing to God if you seek the name of its artist. 416 00:51:02,360 --> 00:51:09,230 It is Nicolau Aluna, the fine crown of his native city of Folino. 417 00:51:09,230 --> 00:51:17,270 Eight years had vanished from a thousand and five times a hundred when the last touch was given to it. 418 00:51:17,270 --> 00:51:29,060 But who a reader deserved more in your judgement, I ask, when Brisset gave the reason he the hand. 419 00:51:29,060 --> 00:51:34,546 Thank you very much.