Thursday, January 14, 2021

Preparing to Paint - North European Study-Drawings

Hans Franckenberger the Elder
St John the Evangelist
1519
drawing
Art Institute of Chicago

Frans Pourbus the Elder
God showing the Promised Land to Moses
ca. 1565-80
drawing
private collection

Frans Pourbus the Elder
Portrait Study of painter Frans Floris
ca. 1570
drawing
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Bartholomeus Spranger
Personification of Faith
ca. 1567-75
drawing
Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

Bartholomeus Spranger
Cupid and Psyche
before 1611
drawing
British Museum

Bartholomeus Spranger
Study for Mercury, Venus and Cupid
before 1611
drawing
British Museum

Bartholomeus Spranger
Venus and Cupid
before 1611
drawing
British Museum

Bartholomeus Spranger (1546-1611) – Antwerp-born painter, one of the most influential practitioners of international Mannerism.  In 1565 he went to Italy, working for some time in Parma, where the example of Correggio and Parmigianino taught him sfumato and a particularly supple and elegant mode of figure drawing.  In 1570 he was appointed painter to Pope Pius V in Rome.  On the recommendation of his compatriot, Giovanni Bologna [the sculptor Giambologna], Spranger entered the service of the Hapsburg emperor Maximilian II in Vienna (1575).  When Maximilian died only a few months after his arrival, Spranger was taken into the employ of his successor, Rudolph II, and moved (1581) with the imperial court to Prague.  Rudolph was one of the great collectors of curiosities and rarities in the arts and in the natural and occult sciences.  He patronized an overwhelmingly secular, refined and often erotic art, favouring representations of the female nude.  Thus Spranger's oeuvre, little of which is to be found outside what were formerly the imperial collections, consists largely of mythological or allegorical images.  . . .  While in Rome, Spranger had made the acquaintance of his countryman Karel van Mander.  In 1577 Spranger invited Van Mander to Vienna to assist him preparing decorations for Rudolph's investiture; in thanks, he gave Van Mander drawings, which the latter took with him when he emigrated in 1583 to Haarlem.  There, Van Mander showed the drawings to his new friend and associate Goltzius, whom they influenced profoundly [as seen directly below].  Goltzius's engravings after Spranger's designs are the fountainhead not only of Haarlem Mannerism but of an international vogue, influencing artists throughout northern Europe, Italy and the Iberian peninsula.

– Erika Langmuir and Norbert Lynton, Yale Dictionary of Art and Artists (2000)

Hendrik Goltzius
Bust of Angel
1609
drawing
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

attributed to Hendrik Goltzius
Head of Woman
ca. 1610
drawing
private collection

Hendrik Goltzius
Two Studies of Model with Lifted Chin
before 1617
drawing
private collection

Hendrick de Clerck
Arithmetica
before 1630
drawing
private collection

Hendrick de Clerck
Martyrdom of St Sebastian
before 1630
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Livio Mehus
Study for David with Sling
before 1691
drawing
private collection

Livio Mehus
Study for David
before 1691
drawing
private collection

Livio Mehus
Self Portrait
ca. 1650-60
drawing
private collection