DESIGN. - It can be defined in summary as the graphic requirement of an artist, as it manifests itself both on sheets of paper (that is, in the technique proper to it) and in any figurative work of art (in which it can be present as a more or less accentuated interest or intention of the artist).
As regards antiquity, Pliny has handed down to us a definition of the drawing line, alluding to the art of Parrhasius (Nat. hist., XXXV, 67-69), where he attributes expressive, that is subjective, value to the concept of drawing, which instead in the fifteenth century assumes the geometric meaning of contour or circumscription of the object (L. B. Alberti, Piero della Francesca). But there is a second interpretation of the concept of drawing, typically Florentine, which goes back to Cennino Cennini (late 14th century), in which drawing is considered the foundation of the arts (called precisely "arts of drawing"). The theme is developed during the 16th century (Vasari, Armenini, etc.) up to Federico Zuccari (1607), who dualistically distinguishes the "internal drawing" (the inner and conceptual image of the form) from the "external drawing" (the outer and sensory image). Such a distinction, while it recognizes the drawing foundation implicit in individual works of art, then subordinates the value of drawing to the technical superiority of the finished work (painting, sculpture, building).
The criticism of the eighteenth century (Mariette, Richardson, Dézallier d'Argenville) and that of the Romantic and modern periods have gone beyond this conception, attributing to drawing, and particularly to the sketch or rough draft (whose value had moreover been recognized by Leonardo), an independent, aesthetically complete meaning.
The study of drawings is particularly useful for recognizing and retracing, through unmistakable graphic marks, more or less complicated, the individual states of mind and the criticism that an artist directs upon himself. Some critics would even want a graphological science for drawings (Degenhart). Indeed graphic patterns help to facilitate the attribution of drawings, while their critical evaluation concerns the very problem of the work of art in general.
Drawings have come down to us executed on parchment or on paper, in pen, silverpoint, pencil, charcoal, red chalk (not before the 16th century); with highlights in white lead, chalk, etc. Ancient medieval miniatures, on parchment with outline only and without color, could, strictly speaking, be defined as true drawings. In reality only in the 14th century does the distinction between drawing and miniature appear clear-cut. Among the major draughtsmen from the 14th to the 18th century, mention should be made of: Taddeo Gaddi, Lorenzo Monaco, Beato Angelico, Lorenzo di Credi, Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, Andrea Mantegna, Giovanni Bellini, Albrecht Dürer, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo, Guercino, Rembrandt, G. B. Tiepolo, Francesco Guardi. - See pl. C.
Bibliography9 works
Luigi Grassi