From 7 March to 9 June 2025, the Albertina presents the exhibition “Leonardo – Dürer Renaissance master drawings on colored ground”
Supply: Albertina · Picture: Leonardo da Vinci, “Half-Length Figure of an Apostle”, 1493-95 (element)
Within the Libro dell’Arte, the well-known treatise on portray, Cennino Cennini described drawing in mild and darkish on coloured backgrounds round 1400 as “il principio e la porta del colorire”, the start and the gateway to portray. A century later, Leonardo would good the method in his grandiose research of nature. Albrecht Dürer adopted his instance with sheets such because the Praying Arms, probably the most well-known works within the artwork of drawing. With Leonardo’s and Dürer’s works, the examine in chiaroscuro was lastly acknowledged as a extremely synthetic artwork style.
Whereas the chiaroscuro drawing had a agency place within the work course of in Italy, it was favored north of the Alps for delicate scenic depictions from the mid-Fifteenth century onwards. These had been by no means design drawings, however treasured showpieces. Excellent examples of this are sheets by Albrecht Altdorfer, Hans Baldung Grien and eventually Dürer’s well-known Inexperienced Ardour. The various topics from historical past, mythology and standard beliefs alone reveal that the artists had been focusing on the wishes of a brand new, educated clientele.
The ALBERTINA Museum’s exhibition makes use of rigorously chosen works from its personal holdings and topclass loans from worldwide collections as an instance the capabilities of coloration floor drawings within the South and the North, the expressive prospects the method provided artists and the hyperlinks to modern printmaking. It is going to supply guests a particular aesthetic pleasure and divulge to laymen and connoisseurs alike how grasp draughtsmen resembling Leonardo and Dürer pushed the door to portray huge open and crossed the brink to artwork for artwork’s sake.
