Porcupine, 1951, woodcut by Leonard Baskin
The magic of drawing or printmaking is in the strokes. By strokes I mean the particular and idiosyncratic quality of the lines or other marks the artist makes. Some lines jab while others meander. Some markings are cloudy while others are crisp. The strokes convey in a tactile way the essence of how the artist comes to grips with the challenge of capturing a thing seen or actualizing an inner vision. Making a drawing is a journey of exploration, and these markings are the spoor of the trek. When we look at a drawing, we can feel the energy that went into it in the particular flavor of its lineaments.
In this post I present a goodly selection of mostly monochrome sketches and prints by a wide diversity of masterly mark-makers. I’ll let the works speak for themselves and leave it to you to contemplate the contrasts among them. I have generally chosen pieces with a direct, spontaneous quality, avoiding highly finished styles where the quality of line may be more a matter of design than of the energy of the mind and the hand. I often tried to find unfamiliar examples of the work of well-known artists, and sometimes individual works that are not representative of the artists’ familiar styles. I think you’ll be particularly surprised by the early De Kooning sketch!
Man Walking in a Field, 1883, conte crayon drawing by Georges Seurat
Portrait, title, date and medium unknown, by Paul Cadmus
Composition, 1916, medium unknown, by Wassily Kandinsky
Edward Scissorhands, 1990, pen and pencil drawing by Tim Burton
Autumn, 1970, engraving by Salvador Dalí
Self Portrait, 1946, by David Alfaro Siqueiros
Musician portrait, date, title, and medium unknown, by Edgar Degas
Drawings, 1939, title and medium unknown, by Jackson Pollock
Saturn, 1516, engraving(?) by Hans Baldung Grien
Resting Woman Wearing Tiara, 1936, pen and ink drawing by Henri Matisse
Sketchbook pages, date unknown, drawings by R. Crumb
Reproduction Drawing III (after the Leonardo cartoon), 2010, media unknown, by Jenny Saville
Self Portrait at the Age of Eighty-Three, 1843, ink brush drawing by Hokusai
Untitled, 1981, drawing by Jean-Michel Basquiat
Study for the Head of Leda, 1506, ink and chalk drawing by Leonardo da Vinci
Gregory Hines, date and medium unknown, sketch by Jules Feiffer
Study of the Head of Elizabeth Siddal for “Ophelia”, 1852, medium unknown, by John Everett Millais
Femme nue couchée, 1932, charcoal drawing by Pablo Picasso
Old Man on a Swing, 1826, medium unknown, by Francisco Goya
Untitled, 1950, ink drawing on parchment by Philip Guston
Europa, 1953, lithograph by Hans Erni
Portrait of the Artist’s Mother, 1514, by Albrecht Dürer
Love Forever (TAOW), 2004, marker drawing on canvas by Yayoi Kusama
Bird Personage, date and medium unknown, by Remedios Varo
Court Room Scene, date and medium unknown, by Honoré Daumier
Beekeepers, 1568, etching(?) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Drawings, dates, titles and media unknown, by Alberto Giacometti
Self Portrait, date and medium unknown, by Henry Fuseli
Tree with Trunk, 1998, etching by Louise Bourgeois
Drawing, 1944, title and medium unknown, by Pavel Tchelitchew
Nude Study, 1908, etching by Georges Braque
The Sower, 1888, pencil and pen and ink drawing by Vincent van Gogh
Portrait of Elaine De Kooning, 1940, pencil drawing by Willem De Kooning
Some Can Fly and Some Can’t, 1939, medium unknown, by Rico Lebrun
Le Chapeau-Main, 1947, lithograph by Hans Bellmer
Sketch for “Apollo Slays Python”, 1850, medium unknown, drawing by Eugène Delacroix
Madame Louis-Francois Godinot, 1829, medium unknown, drawing by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, with detail
Corps de Dame, 1950, medium unknown, by Jean Dubuffet
Cape Lion, 1650, medium unknown, drawing by Rembrandt van Rijn
The Man who Taught Blake Painting in his Dreams, 1820, print(?) by William Blake
Five Swearing, 1912, oil sketch by Ferdinand Hodler
Madame Sohn, 1918, charcoal sketch by Egon Schiele
Seated Bodhidharma, 18th century, ink brush drawing by Suio Genro
All the images used in this post were found on the web, and clicking on an image will take you to the page where I found it. Any information about the artwork that is listed as “unknown” is information I was not able to find at the time of making the post. If you can provide additional or corrected information I will incorporate it.
Readers are invited to nominate some of their favorite drawings for an eventual sequel to this post!
