Drawing comparisons - three of the world's great collections of drawings

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Alexander Adams reviews three catalogues of impressive collections of drawings

Wolfgang Ratjen (1943–97) was a German banker who lived most of his life in Munich. He was devoted to Old Master graphics and his keen eye and shrewd financial nous helped him to amass a great collection of European drawings and watercolours. Deeply involved in every aspect of collecting (selecting mounts, measuring, cataloguing and researching all his purchases), Ratjen was brave and honest enough to downgrade attributions when he believed that an item was not by the hand of a famous master but by a lesser-known artist. In 2007 the National Gallery, Washington DC acquired 120 German and 65 Italian drawings, the cream of the Ratjen collection, and exhibited the two groups in separate shows. The catalogues record the exhibitions and the acquisition as a whole. The display of Italian drawings is open at the National Gallery until 27 November 2011.

Of the two books, many people will find the German volume the most surprising, introducing them to a host of talented artists sadly under discussed outside Germany. As such, this volume acts as a primer in German art movements during this period. One of the best artists is Adolph Menzel. Though hardly unknown, he was a great realist, as great in his own way as Manet, but not much recognised in English-speaking countries. A recent academic book by Michael Fried and an exhibition he curated at the Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin in summer 2010 are helping to draw wider attention to the artist. Menzel matched Manet in technique (in drawing at least): his scrupulous realism and dazzling skill make his drawings, pastels and gouaches lifelike and lively. His grand History paintings are very distant from modern taste but the sketches for them are energetic and accessible. Included in this book are a tender portrait of a child sleeping and a bravura sketch of a general’s waterproof coat – testament to Menzel’s considerable range.

Also included are drawings by luminaries of the Northern Romantic movement: Goethe (attributed), Philipp Otto Runge and Casper David Friedrich, represented by a majestic landscape in pencil and watercolour. There are highly resolved architectural plans and views by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Less familiar are the Nazarenes, a group of Germans living in Rome who attempted a detailed and restrained form of Classicism derived from early Raphael. This movement preceded England’s Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood by 40 years. The studies of shrivelled leaves by Friedrich Olivier and Julius Schnorr von Carolfeld are sculpturally firm in their modelling. The historical compositions never match the compelling nature studies and some of the better portraits.

A notable feature of the German volume is the number of watercolours and wash drawings. One is very peculiar. In an ink-wash drawing of about 1800 Adrian Zingg has drawn a landscape with cattle and then, upside down, a leafy landscape with peasants. The two scenes meet in the middle and fill the page. It is one of the most puzzling and startling drawings you will ever see.

In comparison the Italian volume, the newer of the two, is less unexpected (and smaller). Ratjen focused on collecting good examples of drawings of a certain size, level of finish and quality rather than chasing famous names. Even so, he managed acquire an elaborate Canaletto drawing of Venice in carnival (used as the cover illustration). The Guercino drawings are good ones. Piranesi, Tiepolo and Vasari are also included. There are surprises in store. For example, there is a wash drawing of figures and heads by Ambrogio Figino which includes four mesmerizingly delicate paintings of glass jars of water, the light playing on the surfaces and flaring softly in the shadows. A smudged charcoal drawing of studies from a female nude by Gaetano Gandolfi is illustrated next to the final painting. The comparison shows how much more compelling and exciting – to our eyes, at least – drawings can be, whereas the paintings can seem grand, stiff and false. If you want to hook a young student on the Old Masters, show the student drawings like these. They are much easier to understand and copy than oil paintings.  

Both volumes include introductory essays and have bibliographies and indices. Each drawing is reproduced full page (or occasionally as a double page) and discussed at length, sometimes with comparative illustrations. Though the scope of these volumes is more restricted than the Chicago title reviewed below, they are by no means books of interest only to specialists. The texts are illuminating and not ‘dry’. Again, a separate glossary of art terms will be needed by lay readers but the approach of authors is informative without being pedantic. The German volume is nearly sold out but if you have a serious interest in European drawing (or intend to deal in or collect such works) then it is worth the effort to acquire both volumes.

Over more than 40 years the art dealer Richard Gray and his wife Mary L. Gray (herself an art historian) have built an interesting collection of art. The Grays explain (in an interview in Gray Collection: Seven Centuries of Art) that they began collecting by accident, as an unintended by-product of purchasing work for stock for their commercial gallery. In fact they started to think of themselves as collectors only when specialists asked to see the drawings in their home.

Though there are some sculptures and paintings in the collection and the catalogue, they are essentially peripheral to a collection of excellent drawings. The drawings are fine examples of their genres and periods and, notably, not necessarily by the most famed artists of the period. This last point shows that the Grays have selected acquisitions on the quality of the artist’s work and not of the artist’s name, a good guide for other collectors. Drawings are an excellent foundation for a private collection because they are relatively cheap and plentiful compared with paintings and sculpture by the same artists; they are portable and practical; and it is easy to gather a collection of similar size works from very different places and periods. Richard Gray says that when looking a drawing he feels ‘closer to the artist. His humanity, our shared humanity. His activity as a person’.

Collectors of drawings do not need to forgo colour. Although many drawings are monochrome there are examples here in red chalk, brown ink, pastel, watercolour, collage and (most recently) coloured fibre-tipped pens, some on tinted paper. Each drawing is reproduced in colour, displaying the nuances of colour, accompanied by short commentaries by experts on the artist. The commentaries range from issues of attribution to technical points or biographical insights into the artist’s way of working. At the end is an extensive technical section covering exact materials, provenance and specialist literature and footnotes for the commentary. There are also photographs of the drawings in their frames in the Grays’ Chicago apartment, showing how the art has permeated their everyday lives.

The earliest drawing in the book is a portrait of an old man, from around 1500. The majority of the collection centres on northern Italian art from 1520–1800 (Guardi, Tiepolo, Guercino) and French art from 1640 to early modernism (Poussin, David, Delacroix, two lovely portrait drawings by Ingres, Degas, Léger). A fascinating comparison can be made of two exceptional drawings from male models by Degas and Seurat (both rare examples of the type). Degas shades as delicately as Ingres whereas Seurat synthesises shade into heavy blocks. Both are masterpieces by great visual scientists of design and draughtsmanship. Cubism and the art of Picasso and Matisse are well represented and there are a handful of more recent works by American artists (notably a fine colour sketch of women by de Kooning).

This title would be well suited for art students interested in the range of styles and techniques of art, as acts as a virtual primer in some respects. The number of male nudes also means that it is easy to make comparisons between approaches to working on the same subject. An art dictionary might be required for technical terms used, otherwise the text is accessible. Any non-specialist reader wanting to see a variety of drawing styles and sketches from different periods will find Gray Collection: Seven Centuries of Art a rewarding read.

German Master Drawings from the Wolfgang Ratjen Collection 1580–1900by P. Prange, A Robison, H. Sieveking et al. is published by the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC,. 2010. 332 pp., 216 colour/24 mono illus, $85.00. ISBN: 978-1-907-37206-3

Italian Master Drawings from the Wolfgang Ratjen Collection 1525–1835, by H. Chapman, D. Lachenmann et al. is published by the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 2011.  170 pp., 126 colour/5 mono illus, $60.00. ISBN: 978-1-907-37221-3

Gray Collection: Seven Centuries of Art, edited by Suzanne Folds McCullagh is published by the Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, September 2010. 224 pp. approx. 179 colour illus, $50.00/£40.00.ISBN: 978-0-300-16626-2