Fugitive forms and grand designs: 16th-19th century drawings from the collection of Justice Roddy Meagher

Drawing allows for imaginative exploration and elaboration, in which concepts and ideas can emerge and change with relative ease. Uninhibited by the obligation to create a finished and independent object, as is traditionally associated with painting and sculpture, drawing as a medium lends itself readily to the theoretical and the experimental.

The latest University Art Gallery exhibition, ‘Fugitive forms and grand designs: 16th-19th century drawings from the collection of Justice Roddy Meagher’, highlights both the diversity and richness of form and function contained within drawings from the 16th to early 19th century, displaying the development of themes and ideas and the view of the world through the minds and imagination of both known and unknown artists from this period.

The exhibition comprises of drawings that form only part of a gift by the late Justice Roddy Meagher AO (1932-2011) to the University of Sydney, which contains over 1400 objects and artworks. Co-curated by Dr Georgina Cole and Professor Mark Ledbury, the exhibition aims to demonstrate the significance of drawing in art practice, particularly “its role in training the hand, its place in the creation of artistic visions, and its centrality to artists grappling with the world in all its human and environmental complexity,” says Ledbury.

The exhibition includes drawings such as the naturalistic figures of Stefano Della Bella, Elisabetta Sirani’s expressive figure study, the imaginative Rococo landscape by Jean-Baptiste Pillement, George Romney, Thomas Lawrence’s delicate portrait of Lucy Anne Bloxam, Gericault’s powerful linear sketch of Hercules wrestling Antaeus, and Eugène Delacroix’s calligraphic drawing of figures from his North African sketchbook.

To take in the diversity of these images, the exhibition is divided into four thematic sections: People, Place, Spirit and Idea.

‘People’ comprises portraits, figure studies and character sketches. Through life drawing and anatomical observation artists, like Della Bella, were able to manipulate the human form with costume and setting to social interplay and personal behaviour to express political, moral and aesthetic ideas. One can see the holistic treatment of figure and space from the contoured civilians, soldiers and animals in Della Bella’s sketches to curling, convoluted lines of Lawrence.

‘Place’ includes drawings of real and imagined landscapes and settings. The external environment was depicted for its natural beauty and occurrences and many artists from the Renaissance to the 19th century depicted the en plein air scene.

‘Spirit’ encompasses drawings of pious figures and divine beings, such as the Madonna and Child. Figures emerge from the page in light, airy and weightless lines of chalk and graphite, some are deeply sculpted in chiaroscuro; others depicted suffering and torment with powerful, forceful lines. The chalk drawing by Sirani is of a woman’s head, the flowing lines and soft shading show the woman’s purity and innocence, her tilted head suggests adoration as though she is a saint. This is one of the greater drawings in the exhibition, simple yet enticing, this unknown subject demonstrates the powerful effect of this medium.

Finally, ‘Idea’ focuses on drawing as a conceptual medium for generating ideas and groups the numerous sketches made by Romney, Gericault and others for ambitious artistic projects.

The flow of the line, the force of the chalk, ink or graphite, grants insight into an artist’s artistic processes and techniques of the 16th to early 19th centuries. Linear trajectories, soft shading, deep tones all contribute to the complex character of this medium. It is this ‘complexity’ that draws the viewer into these real and imagined worlds, following every line, exploring every shadow and admiring every detail.

University Art Gallery, The University of Sydney
Until 30 August, 2014
Sydney

Artist unknown, Untitled (historical scene), 18th century

Artist unknown, Untitled (kneeling figure), 17th century

Courtesy University Art Collection, University of Sydney donated by the Hon R.P. Meagher through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program 2011

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