Paper made its first appearance in Europe in the 11th
century, but was expensive and suffered from poor quality. By the 15th century,
it was inexpensive and of good quality, and that dramatically changed the level
of Renaissance art:
"Paper created a monumental
shift in European art. ... Drawing is a primal urge, ... but drawing only
became a standard art form when paper became available. In the case of Europe,
this occurred during the Renaissance, when paper was still a new idea on the
Continent. Previously, there had been very little informal use of parchment for
art because it was too expensive and too difficult to erase. At first, European
paper was also too expensive to be used to dash off a quick sketch and had too low a standing to be used for
serious art. But by the late fifteenth century, this had all changed. Paper
opened up the possibility of the sketch. Renaissance artists sketched out their
work before they drew, painted, or sculpted it -- or, in the case of Albrecht
Dürer's woodcuts, carved it. This new ability to not only plan but
toy with ideas raised their art to a level not known in the Middle Ages.
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Albrecht Dürer,
Self-Portrait at
Thirteen, 1484
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"Artists drew and sketched
with varying degrees of skill. Leonardo da Vinci was legendary for his skills
as a draftsman. Michelangelo, known for his frescoes and sculptures, was
equally brilliant as a draftsman -- many art historians consider him to have
been the greatest draftsman who ever lived -- though most of his drawing was
scribbled chaotically on sheets of paper not intended for public view. Both
artists used Fabriano paper at least some of the time.
"Sixteenth-century artist
and historian Giorgio Vasari, whose Lives of the Most Eminent Painters,
Sculptors, and Architects is
the leading source of biographical information on the Italian Renaissance
artists, tells the story of a sketch by Michelangelo that was displayed in the
Palazzo Medici for art students to copy. Since the sheet, like most of Michelangelo's
sheets, had a variety of sketches on it, students started tearing off pieces of
it, and they became 'scattered over many places.' According to Vasari, those
fortunate students who ended up with a remnant treasured it and regarded it as
something 'more divine than human.'
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Head of a Young Woman
-- Da Vinci
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"Michelangelo used a great
deal of paper, [and] ... almost any piece of paper he used contained a few sketches.
A few are finished drawings. A stunning drawing of the resurrection of Christ
is also marked with a shopping list. Masterful drawings were folded up, with
notes about the banal ephemera of everyday life jotted on the reverse side. ...
"Michelangelo may have been
among the first to jot down quick ideas for himself. Some 2,000 letters from and to Michelangelo have
also been collected. Letter writing is another practice that blossomed with the
widespread use of paper.
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The Nuremberg paper mill, the building complex at the lower right corner, in 1493. |
"Leonardo da Vinci was
notorious in his lifetime for his inability to complete projects.
... Fortunately, there was paper, on which Leonardo could capture his
genius. Though he is usually thought of as a painter, only fifteen paintings,
some unfinished, have been found, along with two damaged murals. He also
attempted some sculpture, though he never finished one piece. But he left
behind thirty bound notebooks. Unlike Michelangelo, he did want people to see
this work on paper, including the notes he made in his mirror-image script -- a
curious response to being left-handed. He left drawings depicting all kind of
inventions, and notes on literature, arts, mythology, anatomy, engineering,
and, most of all nature....
"Leonardo also left behind
four thousand sheets of drawings of staggering beauty. He was the first
artist to be recognized for his drawings on paper.
Leonardo's work became the
standard for art in Renaissance Florence. Studying art now meant working on
paper, learning to draw. Leonardo had learned art that way himself, in the
workshop taught by Andrea del Verrocchio. Artists have been trained on paper
ever since."
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