The most personal Art
Drawing has played a fundamental role in art history since the 15th century. It is the medium that directly translates the artists‘ thoughts into a visual form. It is also of great importance in the development of the final composition, as sketches express inspiration and generate new ideas in the artists. Thus, drawing is the graphic pendulum that moves between an initial idea and the completed work. For artists, drawing has always been crucial for learning perspective and anatomy. Even the experienced masters practise it regularly away from idea generation to train the eye and the hand.
For art historians, those drawings that can be identified as drafts of later executed paintings are of great interest. They allow an insight into the artistic creative process and sometimes show which challenges had to be met in shaping the composition or which pictorial elements were particularly important to the artists. Whether a drawing may only be considered a draft or an independent work can in many cases be judged by whether the sheets were subsequently signed.
In marine painting, drawing is of great importance, especially for travelling artists. The landscape is not put on canvas on site, but first recorded as a sketch on paper, where they are sometimes used for years as a model for studio paintings.
