Study for the head of Leda, c.1505-1507
Leonardo da Vinci
Image: wikimedia commons
Study for a painting that apparently was never executed. While most of da Vinci's drawings were studies for what might be seen as grander projects, the studies flour
ish on their own as works of art. Drawings allow us to see the process of the artist, each and every line, a sketched surface, something that is often lost in the smoothness of a painting (particularly in more traditional work).
Looks like this image is only part of an overall page of drawing in the Royal Collection, UK. You can see the same shadow of where the arch of her should was originally. Note the difficulty in finding images on the web, they are so often cropped with no lead on where the original came from (of course I sometimes add to the problem, though I try to avoid it).More drawings of Leonardo.
Page from George Grosz's sketchbook, Manhattan Skyline, 1950-51George Grosz (1893-1959)
38 pages of off-white wove paper; 23.3 x 15.3 cm.My intentions were to share with you one of George Grosz's paintings of Manhattan but I had some trouble finding a good image of one, but I am including it here as well (Lower Manhattan, 1934, oil on cardboard, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco) I did in my inquiry find something very exciting though, a digitization of a sketchbook focused on the Manhattan skyline and mice! Why mice,
I'm not sure, but being able to see the sketches of an artist such as Grosz is excellent. The sketchbook was part of an the exhibition, Under Cover: Artist's Sketchbooks held at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard which has a large collections of intact artist sketchbooks. They digitized a portion of them, which can be accessed on the Harvard art museums website.George Grosz is well known for his bitter satirical images but spent a lot of time with his adopted city of New York in imagery as well and being a sucker for nyc images, well, I think my choice is obvious. For today, I am more interested in the aspect of sketchbooks as an entry into the mind and work ethic of an artist, from vague sketches (check out Fragonard's) to full-fledged works of art.
More online sketchbooksFascinating little article from 1932, when George Grosz first came to the U.S. to teach at the Art Student's League.
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Study for the head of Leda, c.1505-1507
ish on their own as works of art. Drawings allow us to see the process of the artist, each and every line, a sketched surface, something that is often lost in the smoothness of a painting (particularly in more traditional work).
