France continued to be a leading centre of the art of drawing, a form that was given a very personal note in each case in the works of Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Cézanne. The line—the common point of departure for all of the above-mentioned artists—did not disappear until Georges Seurat’s plane shading, done in the Pointillist manner. Modern
Except for a few stylistic currents such as Tachism (paintings consisting of irregular blobs of colour), drawing is represented in the work of practically all 20th-century artists; it is as international as modern art itself. As the other arts have become nonrepresentational, thus attaining autonomy and formal independence in relation to external reality, drawing is more than ever considered an autonomous work of art, independent of the other arts. Some schools and individual artists as well have concentrated on drawing and in very individualistic ways. The German Expressionists, for instance, developed especially emphatic forms of drawing with powerful delineation and forcible and hyperbolic formal description; notable examples are the works of Ernst Barlach, Käthe Kollwitz, Alfred Kubin, Ernest Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Max Beckmann, and George Grosz. In the artists’ group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), Wassily Kandinsky was foremost in laying the groundwork for a new evaluation of the nonrepresentational line. Paul Klee’s lyrically sensitive drawings, carried out in a pen technique of unheard-of sublimity, represent a high point of modern drawing. In France, drawing plays a major role, especially in the work of the painters of the École de Paris (School of Paris), such as Pierre Soulages and Hans Hartung, who consider the line, the framework of lines, and the network of lines, as primary manifestations of form. Wols (Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze) and also the English artist Sutherland" class="md-crosslink">Graham Sutherland may actually be called spiritual draftsmen who put their faith in the magic of the line. Finally, drawing occupies a considerable place in the work (including all its variants of style and form) of Pablo Picasso, who knew how to make use of its manifold technical possibilities. One is surely justified in calling him the greatest draftsman of the 20th century and one of the greatest in the history of drawing.
Still Life with Glass, Apple, Playing Card, and Package of Tobacco, pencil drawing by Pablo Picasso, 1913; in the Lydia and Harry Lewis Winston Collection, Birmingham, Michigan. 23.8 × 31.0 cm.Courtesy of Mrs. Barnett Malbin, Birmingham, Michigan (The Lydia and Harry Lewis Winston Collection); Joseph Klima, Jr. permission S.P.A.D.E.M. 1972, by French Reproduction Rights Inc.
Heribert R. Hutter
Eastern
Some form of monochromatic brush drawing with ink may have been practiced in China as early as the 2nd millennium bc; but the earliest pictorial work is in lacquer or on bronze vessels, contemporaneous with Alexander the Great (ruled 336–323 bc). It relies on contour and silhouette, with men and animals depicted in horizontal registers (levels, one above the other) reminiscent of Egyptian and Mediterranean work. The extent of any mutual influence between East and West cannot yet be determined. Under the Eastern Han dynasty (ad 25–220) wall paintings, linear in character, were produced in fresco (wet plaster) and secco (dry). Only in the Wei (386–534/35) and Tang (618–907) dynasties did the true character of Chinese drawing on silk or paper emerge. In the 7th century, the characteristic albums (ceye) of drawings appear.
No distinction was made between drawing and painting because all Chinese pictorial art was fundamentally graphic. The artist worked with the fine point of the brush on paper or silk laid horizontally on a table. Work in pure outline was called baimiao; ink applied in splashes, pomo. Colour was used sparingly or not at all. The final work was not made direct from nature.
Hindu and Buddhist paintings at Ajanta in India and also in Sri Lanka reveal the essential quality in all Indian art: emphasis on a flowing, rhythmic contour to express movement and gesture. Drawings on palm leaf of the 11th century are similarly based on the use of line to depict mythological scenes.
The 14th century saw the manufacture of paper, introduced from China, permitting the production of the vertical book. Despite the Muslim prohibition of human representation, books illustrated with drawings, sometimes with flat decorative colour, were produced at the Persian and Mughal courts, but not for public display. The use of a precise and expressive line constituted the basis for Persian and Indian (both Mughal and Rajput) miniature paintings, which show people in landscape or in relation to buildings.
Japanese art tended to follow that of China until the early 19th century, when the popular colour print was introduced. In the graceful feminine gestures of Utamaro’s work, the Eastern love of flowing contour is manifest, his lines varying in width and density. Hokusai’s drawings of social life in a humorous, almost grotesque vein reveal his complete command of the expressive line. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Citation Information
Article Title: Drawing
Website Name: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published: 04 June 2019
URL: https://www.britannica.com/art/drawing-art
Access Date: August 16, 2019
Additional Reading
Joseph Meder, The Mastery of Drawing, trans. and rev. by Winslow Ames, 2 vol. (1978; originally published in German, 1919; 2nd ed., 1923), a voluminous work that remains the basic treatment of the history and techniques of drawing. Another treatment, more concise in every respect, is Heinrich Leporini, Die Künstlerzeichnung, 2nd ed. (1955). Arthur E. Popham published an introduction to drawing in A Handbook to the Drawings and Watercolours in the Department of Prints and Drawings of the British Museum (1939), based on the ample materials held by the British Museum. Walter Koschatzky, Die Kunst der Zeichung: Technik, Geschichte, Meisterwerke (1977), is a survey of the history, functions, and techniques of drawing, from the beginnings to modern art, based on excellent examples chosen mainly from the Graphische Sammlung Albertina in Vienna. Charles De Tolnay in History and Technique of Old Master Drawings (1943, reprinted 1972); and James Watrous in The Craft of Old-Master Drawings (1957), deal, from different points of view, with the history and techniques of the old masters; while Heribert Hutter in Drawing: History and Technique (1968; originally published in German, 1966), stresses the artistic function of drawing and includes modern works. Daniel M. Mendelowitz, Mendelowitz’s Guide to Drawing, 3rd ed. rev. by Duane A. Wakeham (1982), provides a historical résumé, with reference to the artistic elements and technical means of drawing; in the supplement to the 1st ed., Drawing: A Study Guide (1967), he offers practical instructions for drawing techniques and their application; as does Robert Beverly Hale in Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters (1964, reprinted 1974). Jakob Rosenberg illustrates the possibilities of drawing in Great Draughtsmen from Pisanello to Picasso, rev. ed. (1974), with samples from the works of eight great artists. Great Drawings of All Time, ed. by Ira Moskowitz and Victoria Thorston, 5 vol. in 6 (1962–79), contains a summary with comments by leading authorities. M.W. Evans, Medieval Drawings (1969), is useful for the early history of the art of drawing; Paul J. Sachs, Modern Prints and Drawings: A Guide to a Better Understanding of Modern Draughtsmanship (1954), for more recent developments. Hermann Boekhoff and Fritz Winzer, Das grosse Buch der Graphik (1968), gives the history of the 24 best known collections, with comments by the various curators and the basic catalog of each collection. Interesting information can be found in catalogs of many exhibitions and collections, such as Bernice Rose, Drawing Now (1976), which discusses contemporary types of drawing. The number of detailed investigations in regard to individual countries, periods, and artists is too large to be listed in this bibliography. One that can be especially recommended, however, is Edward J. Olszewski, The Draftsman’s Eye: Late Italian Renaissance Schools and Styles (1981). Luigi Grassi, Storia del disegno (1947), is very valuable for the role of drawing in the historical theories of art, including the elucidation of the original sources for further study. Unsurpassed in method and fundamental for an intensive study of this subtle theme is Bernhard Degenhart’s essay “Zur Graphologie der Handzeichnung,” in Jahrbuch der Hertziana, vol. 1 (1937). Heribert R. Hutter