Preparatory drawing

The drawing

The drawing is a set of signs, points, strokes and hatches of different densities that organize a flat surface.

Luca Cambiaso (1527 – 1585)

A mental image

The stroke, at the base of the drawing, is a simplification, a transposition of a visual or mental image onto a two-dimensional space.

There is no defined line in nature

The outside world appears as a juxtaposition of surfaces and colors, only the outlines of the objects seem to form lines that in reality do not exist.

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“Un’apparente dimostrazione con linee di quelle cose, che prima l’uomo con l’animo si aveva concepite, e nell’idea immaginate; al che s’avvezza la mano con lunga pratica, ad effetto di far con quello esse cose comparire”.
Filippo Baldinucci, 1681

Materials

A support – A coloring matter – A tool

Support – Color

Support – Tool

Support- Color- Tool

The first supports used were rock or clay walls, bones, ivory, shells, wood, leather, terracotta, metals and even human skin or sand. The coloring materials are earth and coal-based while the tools were the fingers of the hand, straws to spray the color or rudimentary brushes (feathers, tufts of fur, twigs with frayed tips); pieces of ore could also be directly used to scratch the rock. Both stone and metal tips were used to engrave the surfaces.

Support, coloring matter and tool distinguish the different types of technique.

Methods

Traditional drawing is implemented, in its most characteristic form, by means of the contour line to which chiaroscuro can be added, using a liquid dye (applied with a pen or brush) or dry (using a pencil or pastel), on a paper support (white or slightly toned).

1234
BackgroundWhiteGray or colored
DrawingOnly contour linesHatched chiaroscuroWatercolor chiaroscuroChiaroscuro with highlights
DryWet

Leonardo da Vinci, La Vergine con il Bambino e Sant’Anna – Carboncino e biacca su carta rossa 2-4-1

Leonardo da Vinci disegno preparatorio Sant’Anna

2-4-1

Using the chart above it is possible to schematize, with a simple series of numbers in succession, the technique used to create a work.

Leonardo’s drawing referenced here on the side was made on a red-tinted support which in the chart corresponds to the second column of the first row (the first number will therefore be 2); has lead white highlights (the sequence then becomes 2-4) and is performed with the dry stroke of a pencil (number 1 on the third row).
The sequence that schematically summarizes the technique used will be 2-4-1.

The proposed scheme allows to easily understand the high number of possible variations.

The four “ways” in the Sixteenth Century

In 1587 Giovan Battista Armenini in his treatise De’ veri precetti della pittura indicates four different ways of proceeding in the execution of a drawing:

  1. With the lead stylus you start light on the white paper by gradually reinforcing the stroke, then take the pen (quill) and go over the drawing. Still with pen (quill), the hatching is done
      (1-2-2).
  2. Like the previous one but the shadows are made by watercoloring with a brush. The initial strokes are reinforced with ink (1-3-2).
  3. Like the previous procedure but performed on tinted papers and completing the work with some light on the peaks. “Lights with lead white” (2-4-2).
  4. The drawing is made with red or black pencil on rough paper with little glue. Gradient hatch with small brush (1-2-1)

Raffaello – St. George and the Dragon  (1-2-2)

Guardi-Teatro La Fenice (1-3-2)

Parmigianino-Apollo and Marsyas (2-4-2).

Jacopo Carucci – Pontormo – Self-portrait (1-2-1)

The four ways indicated by Armenini do not include the entire series of possible technical variations, an example is the cartoon of Saint Anne (2-4-1) by Leonardo da Vinci which does not fall into any of the four categories indicated.

Purposes

  • Preparatory studies (sketches, overall drawings, detail studies, models of the composition) – Preparatory drawing
  • Drawings integrated into the work – underlying drawing
  • Separate drawings (scientific or artistic)

Preparatory drawings

Sketch

Raffaello Sanzio

In the process of creating a work, the sketch represents a first exercise, a first thought, in the form of a quick, indeterminate image, consisting of a few summary and essential strokes, usually carried out in pen or pencil on a paper support.

Study

Tiziano Vecellio

Tiziano Vecellio

The term study identifies an in-depth drawing made by the artist to better evaluate or study (a preparatory drawing in all respects) a figure or an object or in any case a detail to be subsequently traced back to a more complex composition.

Model

Pontormo

Jacopo Carucci, known as Pontormo

The model, a preparatory drawing par excellence, presupposes a series of previous phases and in turn is intended to be translated into a different artistic technique through the procedures of tracing, pouncing, squaring.

Manfredi Faldi

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Drawings integrated into the work – Article in preparation

  • Il disegno preliminare o disegno soggiacente

    Disegno destinato ad essere ricoperto di colore,
    il disegno cioè presente al di sotto degli strati pittorici di un dipinto

Fonti:

K. Teissig, Le tecniche del disegno, Fratelli Melita Editori, 1991
L. Grassi, M. Pepe, Dizionario della critica d’arte, Utet, 1978
Claudio Paolini, Manfredi Faldi, Glossario delle tecniche artistiche e del restauro, Edizioni Palazzo Spinelli 2005
AA.VV., Le tecniche artistiche, a cura di C. Maltese, Milano, Mursia 1978
Giovan Battista Armenini, De’ veri precetti della pittura, Ravenna, 1586
Filippo Baldinucci, Vocabolario Toscano dell’arte del disegno, Firenze, Santi Franchi 1681
A. Petrioli Tofani, I materiali e le tecniche; in Il disegno, forme, tecniche, significati. Istituto Bancario San Paolo Torino, 1991
A. Petrioli Tofani, Raffaello a Firenze. Dipinti e disegni delle collezioni fiorentine, Electa 1984, pp.271-277
Bertelli, A. Gallone, M. Milazzo, M. Olivari, Il disegno nascosto dello Sposalizio, in Raffaello giovane e Città di Castello, Catalogo della mostra, Città di Castello, 1983, pp. 95-118
Gaspare De Fiore, I modelli di disegno, fabbri Editore 1984
Colin Eisler, La mano, il segno, disegni dei maestri dal XIV al XX secolo, Fratelli Fabbri Editori 1976

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