Reflections On The Art Of Drawing

D rawing, in its traditional role as the activity from which the other arts of painting and sculpture develop, has often been confined to the shadows. This role is ambivalent in being both central and essential but also peripheral at the same time. The act of drawing begins the journey for a completed work of art and also maps the internal journey of the artist. Whether it is drawing from life, drawing from great masters or just drawing, the process leaves traces which illuminate and capture detail which may quietly exist in its own right or be a catalyst for another work. The process of trying to understand, to deconstruct, always involves both give and take. Drawing shamelessly ‘takes’ from the external through simple observation and interpretation but it also ‘takes’ from the internal by dipping into the deep pool of the subconscious.

For the artist, drawing is revelatory and an adventure and at its most rewarding displays you to yourself. It teases out ideas and uncovers the hidden or forgotten and, in turn, reveals the hand and mind of the artist to the viewer. There is an element of mystery to this largely private process. A visual and intellectual question is being asked and the artist is lost in the journey to finding an answer which may lie in the drawing itself, or beyond that, in a separate work of art. For the time that the journey takes, the artist inhabits a liminal zone, in suspension between the question and the answer. Completion of the drawing contains traces of the journey and an answer to the question.

Launch Slideshow

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  J.M.W. Turner RA, Figures on the Beach at Margate, Kent. Estimate: £50,000–80,000

  More than anything else, this beautiful watercolour reveals Turner’s deep knowledge of place – in this case, probably Margate. He knows the topography and the weather so well that he can capture that moment with just a limited palette to enhance the base colour of the paper. Like a visual ‘haiku’ poem he says a lot with very little, confident that the viewer will bring their own experience and imagination to bear. With a few strokes he shares his reaction to a particular moment, of probably no great significance, but captured nonetheless for posterity.

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  Anton Henstenburgh, Study of Seven Insects.
  Estimate: £6,000–8,000

  In this exquisite work these extraordinary insects exist without a context. They are there because of what they are – the subject of intense scrutiny fuelled by a desire for knowledge. Trapped in a form of circle dance, the insects become actors in the human desire to catalogue and enumerate the natural world. Vellum offers a subtle luminosity and receives and holds the painted mark on its non-absorbent surface giving the artist confidence that his extraordinary attention to detail is faithfully preserved.

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  François Boucher, Half-length of a seated Young Woman reading ‘Abelard et Héloïse’.
  Estimate: £25,000–35,000

  I have a particular fondness for images of a person reading and this soft chalk drawing by Boucher is no exception. What is the attraction? I think it might be because the internal ‘conversation’ within the act of drawing is mirrored in the intensely intimate and internal act of silent reading. We feel the intensity of her gaze, her rapt attention and we can’t help but wonder what she is reading and somehow suppress the desire to interrupt her and find out! The fizzing lines used to describe her dress are an interesting counterbalance to the focused quiet of her reading.

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  Giovanni Battista Naldini, Recto: A compositional study, possibly the vocation of St. Matthew Verso: Three studies of the torso of Venus, after the Antique.
  Estimate: £8,000–12,000

  These three studies are a beautiful example of the perennial challenge of rendering the soft human form in two dimensions. The line which describes the outline and separates the form from the ground is tentative and exploratory as if it is navigating virgin territory with a blindfold. The line moves, shifts, returns, reinforces as it inches forward and breathes life into the human form on the page as if the chalk has sculpted the paper. The focus on the torso gives a visual ambiguity – seeing the human form as if we are analysing an unfamiliar creature.

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  Jan Lievens, A family with two children on the move.
  Estimate: £10,000–15,000

  This tiny drawing is almost a visual equivalent of ‘stream of consciousness’ writing. As a viewer we can read the speed of his mark-making, we can almost trace his progress across the tiny piece of paper as he makes quick judgements and corrections to the figures and their context. The mass of zig zag lines anchors the figures to the background and hints at the space they might inhabit in a finished work. Perhaps most revealing is the white space and change to curved lines in the centre which takes us away from the busyness of the picture plane and suggests something ‘beyond’.

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  Attributed to Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, The Head of Saint John the Evangelist with the profile of the Head of Saint Peter to the left (after Leonardo da Vinci).
  Estimate: £80,000–120,000

  As current President of the Royal Academy of Arts it is moving to see a work which belonged to one of my illustrious predecessors, Sir Thomas Lawrence. What artists choose to collect, the images they pin up in their studios or now put on their social media is both fascinating and revealing and sometimes surprising. Is the image chosen for reference or for inspiration or, as I suspect in this case, because it is simply a drawing of such exquisite delicacy that you would want to see it every day and slowly unravel its mystery?

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  John Constable, R.A., Cottages by a pond (Well Walk, Hampstead).
  Estimate: £12,000–18,000

  A deep familiarity with place underpins Constable’s work and this drawing reflects his association with Hampstead. It pre-dates the death of his wife Maria by a year which gives the portrayal of a rather cosy little house a certain poignancy. Maybe for Constable the purchase of this property represented hopes for a healthy family life. His pencil line is swift and assured and skitters from a densely worked foreground through softly voluptuous trees to the merest hint of scudding clouds.

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The extraordinary works in this Master Works on Paper sale all bring their own questions and offer their own answers. We can follow the hand of the artist wrestling with the challenges of observational drawing or we can appreciate the analytical hand in the task of understanding, explaining and presenting. There are drawings which reveal a profound and knowing familiarity with a subject and those where the artist is on a journey of exploration in virgin territory. Both give us an insight into the artist’s visual thought processes. Common to all the drawings is the modesty of materials by which the artistic vision is captured. A simple pencil, ink or chalk line on paper proves itself equal to the task of carrying the weight of observation and exploration and, beyond that, the possibility of a grander future in another artistic form.

In some of the works the grander future as a painting, perhaps, is within touching distance but other works proudly capture the uncertainty, the indecision of the first draft of an idea. All the works demonstrate to a greater or lesser extent the conscious mental control of the artist in relation to the materials. How in control are they? How much control does the artist knowingly cede to the materials? What do they learn from the serendipitous interaction between materials and do they exploit it or wrestle it into submission? Every work tells its own story of the mind and intention of the artist and its meeting with the material world through the act of drawing and captures, for the viewer, that unique interaction, a moment of revelation.

Past Auction

Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries

6 July 2022 | 10:00 AM BST | London