drawing
portrait
drawing
baroque
figuration
line
history-painting
Copyright: Public Domain
This is Claude Lorrain's "Studies of Figures", a drawing currently held in the Städel Museum. The image is a flurry of lines in sanguine. Lorrain meticulously mapped out the poses and arrangements of figures on the page. The composition is divided into two distinct registers. The upper register features more developed figures and a rider on horseback, while the lower register shows sparser figures in various states of action. Lorrain explored how the human body could convey movement and emotion. Here, we have Lorrain engaging with the classical tradition, yet breaking it down into its core elements, a collection of lines which allows us to grasp the human form in both static and dynamic poses. The figures, devoid of specific context, suggest the universality of human experience as told through formal elements. This piece encapsulates art as a continuous investigation into form, representation and expression.
Comments
The building is the same as the one in the previous drawing, but seen here from a shorter distance, directly from the opposite side of the river. On the right-hand side, parts of the hills and the river lie underneath the dark grey wash, which indicates that the trees and the river bank beneath them were subsequently added in a dark wash, in order to complete the composition. If these drawings originally came from a sketchbook, the figures on the back may have been added later; if it was created as a single sheet, however, it is more likely that Claude reused a sheet of paper on which he had already made a drawing. The large shadow that shines through from the landscape drawing on the back suggests that the landscape was drawn later. Both drawings were probably made at the same time. In view of the relationship between the figures on the back and the painting of a coastal scene dating from 1639 (MRP 44), which Roethlisberger has pointed out, it seems likely that they date from about 1639.
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