Exhibition Highlights Materials and Techniques of Old Master Drawings

Visitors Are Able To Try Techniques For Themselves

Cambridge, Massachusetts - The special exhibition Behind the Line: The Materials and Techniques of Old Master Drawings will be on display at the Fogg Art Museum from October 3 through December 27, 1998. The exhibition will explain the techniques, processes and materials used by old master draftsmen and provide a discussion of how some of these materials had a direct influence on the development of drawing during this period. Visitors will be allowed to try out for themselves most of the media to be presented. Forty-six works dated from the fourteenth to the late eighteenth century will be on display, some for the first time. They have been selected from the Art Museums' collection and two private collections. Behind the Line was organized by Edward Saywell, while he served as the 1996-97 Lynn and Philip A. Straus Intern, Department of Drawings. Saywell's essay and catalogue for the exhibition will be published in the Harvard University Art Museums Bulletin, volume VI, number II, this fall.

"An artist's conceptual and creative process is always shaped by, and never separate from, the nature and potential of the materials and techniques available to him," writes Saywell. "In drawings, a blank sheet of paper is transformed by means of the drawn line, the characteristics of which are determined by the nature of the medium chosen to create it, and by the pressure and movement of the artist's hand in applying this material to the paper. There is an indissoluble link between style, technique and materials. However, visual convention conditions the viewer to look beyond the immediate and palpable surface of a work of art to the illusory and fictional world of the picture so that we may explore concepts such as artistic originality, individuality and invention. Consequently, even though our initial encounter with a work of art is always with its physical surface, with those very same marks that articulate and define the image, little critical attention is accorded to the analysis and exploration of artist's materials and techniques."

Behind the Line will focus not on the subject matter or creator of the works in question, but on the very materials and techniques of the artist. It is not about what is drawn or who drew it, but how. The exhibition will begin with a discussion of the manufacture and use of paper and parchment, and progress through a presentation of the different kinds of media and tools used by draftsmen, including metalpoint, ink, charcoal, chalk, graphite, gouache, watercolor and pastel. A glossary of drawing terms and techniques is provided as an appendix to Saywell's essay. The glossary will be available in booklet form in the exhibition gallery and is currently linked to the Art Museums' John Singer Sargent web site at www.artmuseums.harvard.edu.

As well as explanatory text panels, individual object labels will give small hints and pointers on what to look for in the artists' techniques, encouraging viewers to compare and contrast the works for themselves. When looking at Francois Clouet's Portrait of Charles Halluin, Monsieur de Pienne, the viewer will be encouraged to note how the artist creates coloristic effects not by stumping or rubbing the chalks together, but by making the individual red and black chalk strokes so fine and by placing them so close together over a layer of red chalk that optically they suggest Halluin's hair, beard and mustache are brown. If the viewer looks closely at the surface of the parchment in Johannes Bronkhorst's Three Birds he will see that the veins of the animal skin are visible as opaque striations across the sheet.

From a distance one can see that the optical quality of Maurice-Quentin de Latour's pastel drawing, Portrait of Jean-Charles Garnier, Seigneur d'Isle, of c. 1751, mirrors the power and richness of oil painting. Focus on the sitter's lace collar, and it is possible to see how its diaphanous quality is suggested by placing a layer of unblended, possibly moistened, white pastel on top of the initial layer of pastel. On the other hand, rather than blending the individual strokes of pastel together to create the velvety quality of Latour's technique, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin leaves every stroke visible in his Portrait of the Painter Jean-Jacques Bachelier of 1773, such that one is able to see the multitude of hues and strokes that he used to build up a rich patina of warm color and strident texture.

Behind the Line: The Materials and Techniques of Old Master Drawings is supported by the John M. Rosenfield Teaching Exhibition Fund.

Editors please note: The dates for this exhibition have been changed since the February 1998 Advance Schedule of Exhibitions. They are correct on the June 1998 Schedule.

RELATED EVENTS
Gallery talks
Gallery talks are free with the price of admission to the Art Museums. Hearing assists are available for gallery talks; arrangements should be made beforehand by phoning (617) 495-8286. To request a sign language interpreter, the public should call (617) 495-2397 using Massachusetts Telephone Relay Service 1-800-439-2370 three weeks in advance of the gallery talk.

Sunday, October 4, 2:00 p.m., Fogg Art Museum
with Edward Saywell, John S. Newberry Research Assistant, Department of Drawings and exhibition curator.

Saturday, October 24, 11:30 a.m., Fogg Art Museum
with Miriam Stewart, assistant curator of drawings.

Sunday, November 1, 2:00 p.m., Fogg Art Museum
with James Harper, 1998-99 Lynn and Philip A. Straus Intern, Department of Drawings.

Saturday, November 14, 11:30 a.m., Fogg Art Museum
with Miriam Stewart, assistant curator of drawings.

Sunday, November 22, 2:00 p.m., Fogg Art Museum
with James Harper, 1998-99 Lynn and Philip A. Straus Intern, Department of Drawings.

Sunday, December 6, 2:00 p.m., Fogg Art Museum
with Edward Saywell, John S. Newberry Research Assistant, Department of Drawings and exhibition curator.

Seminar Series
Behind the Image: The Materials and Techniques of Art from 1400 to the Present
Tuesdays, October 13, 27, November 3, 10, 17, 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.,
Fogg Art Museum and Carpenter Center for Visual Arts
$125; $95 for Friends; advance registration is required. Please call the Friends, Fellows and Special Programs Office at (617) 495-4544 to register. Editors note: People may not register for individual sessions of this seminar series. Please do not publish any sessions as individual events. Thank you.

Join curators, conservators, interns, a lecturer and an artist for this five-part seminar given in conjunction with exhibitions Behind the Line: The Materials and Techniques of Old Master Drawings, Touchstone: 200 Years of Artists' Lithographs and Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Sketches in Clay to explore a wide variety of artists' materials and techniques. Discussions will be drawn entirely from original works in the Fogg's collections and will include sessions on the materials and techniques of old master and contemporary drawings, the history of lithography, and a general introduction to the techniques of photography. A discussion of the Bernini terracotta sculptures and a session in the Straus Center for Conservation will focus on those technical methods for examining works of art that allow us literally to see behind and under the surface of works of art. Participants will also enjoy two workshops during the series, the first will be on printmaking at the printmaking studio of the Carpenter Center with lecturer Piek Larson and the second will be on metalpoint drawings in the Straus Center 's Paper Laboratory with artist Susan Schwalb.

With Marjorie B. Cohn, Carl A. Weyerhaeuser Curator of Prints, Fogg; Colette C. Hemingway, Andrew Mellon Intern, Department of Paintings and Sculpture, Fogg; Deborah Martin Kao, associate curator of photographs, Fogg; Penley Knipe, Claire W. and Richard P. Morse Fellow for Advance Training in Paper Conservation, Straus Center for Conservation; Piek Larson, lecturer in visual and environmental studies, Carpenter Center for Visual Arts; Edward Saywell, John S. Newberry Research Assistant, Department of Drawings, Fogg; Susan Schwalb, artist; Ron Spronk, research associate for technical studies, Straus Center for Conservation.

The Harvard University Art Museums' facilities are wheelchair accessible. For general information, please call (617) 495-9400. For press information or photographs, please contact Kate McShea Ewen at (617) 495-2397. For more information on events, please contact the Friends, Fellows, and Special Programs Office at (617) 495-4544. World Wide Web: www.artmuseums.harvard.edu.

The Harvard University Art Museums comprise three museums (Busch-Reisinger Museum, Fogg Art Museum, Arthur M. Sackler Museum), all located on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, MA, at the intersection of Quincy Street and Broadway, adjacent to Harvard Yard. The Art Museums are open Monday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., and Sunday 1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. Closed holidays. Admission is $5.00; $4.00 for senior citizens; $3.00 for students; free under 18, on Saturday mornings from 10:00 a.m to 12:00 p.m. and all day on Wednesdays. For special tour reservations, please call (617) 496-8576. General tours are offered Monday through Friday from September through June, Wednesdays only in July and August. The Fogg tour is at 11:00 a.m.; the Busch-Reisinger tour is at 1:00 p.m.; and the Sackler is at 2:00 p.m. The Harvard University Art Museums is supported in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.