Emily Choi Visceral Drawings: An Appeal to the Senses Mantegna to Matisse: Master Drawings from The Courtauld Gallery

at the Frick Collection is a survey of European drawings from the mid-fifteenth century to the early twentieth century that aims to exemplify the different purposes and functions drawing has served during the Renaissance, Baroque, and Modern periods.1 The exhibition is divided into four spaces and is loosely arranged in chronological order, beginning with fifteenth century drawings in the South-End and ending in the Cabinet room upstairs with the Modern drawings. There are many recognizable names and a wide range of styles showcased, from free, quick sketches typified in da Vincis Studies for Saint Mary Magdalene to finely tuned, highly detailed images such as Bruegels Kermis at Hoboken. While the selection is impressive, the qualifiers used to identify these fifty-eight particular drawings, out of the Courtaulds collection of over six thousand works on paper, as being particularly exemplary of Master Drawings is never clearly explained. The selected works have no thematic relationship beyond the fact that they are part of the Courtaulds collection. It provides a brief glimpse into the multitude of drawing styles, but does little to educate the viewer about the differences in material, the conceptual implications of those materials, and the legacy of the work in a greater historical context.

Taken from the introductory wall text to Mantegna to Matisse: Master Drawings from The Courtauld Gallery at the Frick Collection
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What defines a Master and is a Master in painting different from a Master in drawing? Understanding an artists accomplishments in drawing seems to stem from the question of his or her accomplishments in painting or sculptureis a successful painter the same as a successful draughtsmanand the unconscious comparison of an artists work between mediums. The value of the drawings seems to rest on the laurels of the artists work in more substantial mediums such as painting or sculpture; all the artists included in the exhibition are celebrated pioneers for their works in those other mediums. There is no framework to anchor drawing, as a distinctly different practice, from painting or sculpture, nor a framework to assess works on paper and understand what exactly it is that makes these pieces prime examples of extraordinary draftsmanship. Many works in the exhibition are simply accompanied by formal descriptions without reference to the works function, what purpose it served for the artist, how it was kept and why this particular piece is emblematic of this artists drawing style. It makes the assumption that the viewer is familiar with the artists works in other mediums and can draw the comparison him or herself. Take, for example, Cezannes Apples, Bottles and Chairback. The wall text merely describes the immediate qualities of the work, but does not mention how closely related this composition is to his infamous oil paintings and how it functions differently from them. Cezannes interest in this particular composition of fruit and glass bottles is telling of his dedication to perfecting an understanding of shape, color and light through experimentation. It seems almost to be a translation of the oil painting into the drawing medium where the drawing is understood in terms of the oil paintings.

The drawing reinforces the fluidity of Cezannes style and the interdependence of the two mediums. This reliance on the viewers pre-existing familiarity with the artists practice can be seen throughout the exhibition. The function of drawing is only explicitly mentioned when it acts as a precursor to an engraving, painting or as a compositional experiment, which positions drawing as always being a dependent creationdependent on some other, greater iteration. In contrast, those pictures intended to be viewed and exhibited as completed works, such as Natoires The Life Class at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture and Turners Dawn After the Wreck, do not clearly address the purpose of their creation. The curatorial decisions both in the flow of the objects (the underlying narrative of the exhibition) and the accompanying wall text do not address how these finished pictures were received by the culture at the time. It does not explore the implications of this transition of drawing from the private into the public sphere and how its relationship to the more popular painting medium affected or was affected by this transition. The incentives for artists to create and exhibit finished drawings are unclear the changing critical and public reception of drawing as a professional art form is not addressed, making it difficult to place drawing outside of its role as a creative exercise. Thus, visitors seemed to be drawn to the drawings that seemed the most like painting in having deliberate compositions that filled the majority of the page with a keen eye for rendering detail. This can be seen, particularly, with Michelangelos The Dream. Unlike many of the other pictures that are incomplete thoughts on paper,

sketches as compositional experiments or anatomical studies, The Dream is a complete, autonomous drawing that is seamless, lacking an obvious transparency of process. Michelangelos use of stumping, blending the chalk, to create the soft contours of the body embodied by an atmospheric halo, acts in contrast to the majority of the drawings that are characterized by sharp, bold lines. The Dream is more closely correlated with typical pictures celebrated in Museums, appearing to exhibit more skill and effort, and completeness in this kind of seamlessness. There were instances of an implicit historical context. For example, two pedestals in the south-end gallery were used to highlight Andrea Mantegnas Two Studies for Christ at the Column and Vittore Carpaccios The Virgin Reading to the Infant Child, which are unique in that the artist utilized both sides of the paper. The use of both sides of the paper speaks to the culture of the mid-fifteenth century, when paper was a relatively costly expense and the paper industry was just beginning to be normalized,2 demonstrating the need for frugality in using ones materials for art making. These economic conditions that guided the artists working method is evident in the formal qualities of the drawing itself, however, it is never directly mentioned in the wall text itself. Instead, the curators rely on the viewer to derive this information him or herself based solely on a formal analysis. Mantegna to Matisse provides an extensive sampling of drawings over a four hundred year period, but fails to provide any socio-historical context to ground the drawings and tackle the real implications of drawing in the time of their fabrication Dard Hunter, Papermaking: The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft, (New York: Dover Publications, 1978), 241.
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and their influence on later generations. The exhibition is not tied together by any conceptual theme, making it difficult to see the threads that trace the evolution of drawings complex relationship to other mediums and its changing status in the professional art world. The works seem to derive their value as Master works due to their creators achievements in other mediums. Mantegna to Matisse does not provide any guidelines for assessing the drawings and understanding their value, suggesting that there is an inherent value based in the fame of the artists namethat is to say, the drawing is important because the artist is important.