A comprehensive study of the techniques of drawing, this is both a historical work, covering the period from the late Middle Ages to the present, and a useful manual for contemporary artists. It presents the old masters' techniques by means of a thorough study of the historical and written evidence of the tools and materials used. The author also includes a series of workshop procedures he has developed with which the contemporary artist may produce the equivalents of the techniques of earlier draughtsmen. This book comprises a body of knowledge that is essential to students of art history, curators, collectors and artists, and is a significant addition to the literature on drawing. In addition to his scholarly investigation of earlier practices, the author identifies materials and processes used by such important artists as Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Romney, Picasso, Michelangelo, Watteau, Holbein, Tiepolo, and Delacroix. For the artist interested in reproducing the effects achieved by these and many other acknowledged masters, there are full discussions and specific directions concerning the making of inks, styluses, reed and quill pens, fabricated chalks, and instructions for preparing grounds for metalpoint drawings. At every step, the discussion is supplemented with illustrations from laboratory experiments and from drawings by both old and contemporary artists. Of the more than sixty illustrations included, thirty-six are reproductions of master works, and among the others there are microphotographic enlargements of detail showing the differences in density and texture produced by various tools on different papers or grounds. Thus, as a collection of master drawings, the book is worthy of the art lover's library; as a technical study, it is an indispensable aid to the art student and practicing artist.

'The Art of Drawing' covers the wider history of drawing in Britain exploring the role crucial drawing has played in British art. Featuring works by foremost British artists from the early 17th century right up to the present day, this book offers fresh insights into the range of ways these artists have used drawing to think on paper, build up ideas and make finished exhibition pieces.

Discover the Keys to Creating Beautiful Drawings with Master Artists Between these pages, artists of all backgrounds will find anything and everything they need to know about drawing. With thorough explanations of materials and their composition, step-by-step demonstrations, and practical advice for creating compositions, The Big Book of Drawing is a comprehensive authority on the medium that is the foundation of all other visual arts. Learn how to handle charcoal, pastel, pencil, and an array of inks; master various shading techniques, including cross-hatching and chiaroscuro; and discover the secrets to constructing attractive and unique compositions. Aspiring artists will learn from the best, with a plentiful array of work by old masters, such as Van Dyke, Rembrandt, Gainsborough, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, and others. This combination of a detailed instruction book and folio of masterpiece art inspires and informs artists in a way that no other drawing book does.

When in their lives do great artists produce their greatest art? Do they strive for creative perfection throughout decades of painstaking and frustrating experimentation, or do they achieve it confidently and decisively, through meticulous planning that yields masterpieces early in their lives? By examining the careers not only of great painters but also of important sculptors, poets, novelists, and movie directors, Old Masters and Young Geniuses offers a profound new understanding of artistic creativity. Using a wide range of evidence, David Galenson demonstrates that there are two fundamentally different approaches to innovation, and that each is associated with a distinct pattern of discovery over a lifetime. Experimental innovators work by trial and error, and arrive at their major contributions gradually, late in life. In contrast, conceptual innovators make sudden breakthroughs by formulating new ideas, usually at an early age. Galenson shows why such artists as Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Cézanne, Jackson Pollock, Virginia Woolf, Robert Frost, and Alfred Hitchcock were experimental old masters, and why Vermeer, van Gogh, Picasso, Herman Melville, James Joyce, Sylvia Plath, and Orson Welles were conceptual young geniuses. He also explains how this changes our understanding of art and its past. Experimental innovators seek, and conceptual innovators find. By illuminating the differences between them, this pioneering book provides vivid new insights into the mysterious processes of human creativity.

This richly illustrated volume offers a new look at the exceptional collection of Italian drawings at the Princeton University Art Museum. An introductory essay by Laura M. Giles chronicles the history and significance of the collection, and nearly one hundred of the collection's masterworks are treated with essay-length entries and full-page images. The first scholarly examination of the collection since Felton Gibbons's comprehensive publication of 1977, the catalogue includes an appendix of more than 150 drawings that have entered the collection since--many previously unpublished, and all fully documented with short entries. Highlights include works by celebrated masters, including Carpaccio and Modigliani, from the early Renaissance through the early Modern periods, with an emphasis on the collection's renowned holdings of works by Luca Cambiaso, Guercino, and the two Tiepolos. With contributions by Alessandra Bigi Iotti, Jonathan Bober, Giada Damen, Diane de Grazia, Rhoda Eitel-Porter, Frederick Ilchman, Anne Varick Lauder, John Marciari, Elizabeth Pilliod, John Pinto, David Stone, Catherine Whistler, and Giulio Zavatta.

A classic book on the craft of painting including technique and materials.