Enfilade

From Yale UP:

Catherine Whistler, Venice and Drawing, 1500–1800: Theory, Practice, and Collecting (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 380 pages, ISBN: 978 0300  187731, $65.

From the time of Titian and Tintoretto to that of Canaletto and Tiepolo, drawing was an important part of artistic practice and was highly valued in Venice. This exciting new study overturns traditional views on the significance of drawing in Venice, as an art and an act, from the Renaissance to the age of the Grand Tour. Gathering together the separate strands of theory, artistic practice, and collecting, Catherine Whistler highlights the interactions and tensions between a developing literary discourse and the practices of making and collecting graphic art. Her analysis challenges the conventional definition of Venetian art purely in terms of color, demonstrating that 16th-century Venetian artists and writers had a highly developed sense of the role and importance of disegno and drawing in art. The book’s generous illustrations support these striking arguments, as well as conveying the great variety, interest, and beauty of the drawings themselves.

Catherine Whistler is senior curator of European art, Ashmolean Museum, and a fellow of St. John’s College, Oxford.

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