Italian Renaissance Drawing

Italian Renaissance Drawing
Carmen Bambach (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

More so than the finished works, drawings can offer an extraordinary glimpse into the artist's mind and creative act. In many ways, the study of Italian Renaissance drawings is still a wide open field, and can still offer numerous oportunities for original research and discoveries. The course will focus on the study of original drawings (rather than reproductions) in order to analyze the archaeological evidence, and pose questions regarding artistic intention, technique, function, and workshop practice. We will explore numerous issues of methodology in the study of art-historical evidence.

Great attention will be given to the works of the major artists of the Italian Renaissance (Pisanello, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian). We will examine drawings intended for paintings, prints, decorative arts, sculptures, and buildings, as well as drawings done as works in and of themselves. The course is "hands on" and will be conducted mostly on-site at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Visits to other public and private collections will also be arranged.