The Masters of Drawing

Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci
http://www.nationalturk.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Leonardo-Da-Vinci.jpg

Leonardo Da Vinci was an Italian polymath, mastering eleven different skills and subjects. He was an engineer, painter, sculptor, scientist and inventor, mathematician, anatomist, architect, botanist, writer and musician. The Italian is most well-known for his highly influential artwork.

There are only 15 paintings of Da Vinci's that have survived today, one of which being the very famous Mona Lisa, which has been acclaimed as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world". Another very famous painting of his would be 'The Last Supper 1498'. It is said to be the most reproduced, parodied and talked about religious painting of all time.

Mona Lisa (1504)
http://uploads6.wikiart.org/images/leonardo-da-vinci/mona-lisa.jpg

The Last Supper (1498)
http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/artists/leonardo_da_vinci/last_supper.jpg

Leonardo Da Vinci's engineering skills were very advanced and way before his time. He created concepts towards a helicopter, a tank, a calculator and many more and he did work towards the theory of tectonic plates. Many of these inventions were not able to be created within his life time as the materials and knowledge was not advanced enough; however some of his smaller inventions were able to come to life, such as an automated bobbin winder.

Da Vinci's sketch of an automated bobbin winder,
including a break down of all the components.
http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/420456/view

Leonardo Da Vinci carried out great research into the human anatomy. "If Leonardo Da Vinci's uncannily accurate studies of the human body had been published in his lifetime, they would have changed the course of science", says Alastair Sooke, an art critic and broadcaster. Da Vinci would dissect human bodies, which was illegal as he was not physician, and draw sketches of what he saw; however this meant that he had to keep his studies a secret. He did research into the bones and muscles of the human body and also how they function, which had never been down before. 

Da Vinci's research into the human anatomy
http://www.artcrimearchive.org/article?id=88001

Da Vinci's sketch of the human body
http://www.artcrimearchive.org/article?id=88001

Above is Da Vinci's sketch of the theory, Vitruvius. Da Vinci came up with the theory that the arm span of a body is the same length as the person's height. The male's belly button lies in the centre of the circle and the rest of the body is drawn round that. Da Vinci's drawing was different to others like it because the male is in two different positions within the same sketch and the male looks more realistic, with the detail of the hair, facial features and muscular build. 

Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973)

Pablo Picasso
http://a5.files.biography.com/image/upload/c_fill,dpr_1.0,g_face,
h_300,q_80,w_300/MTE1ODA0OTcxNzU0MDk2MTQx.jpg

Pablo Picasso was an incredible and influential artist that transformed the artwork of the 20th century and was the co-creator of Cubism. He was skilled in many areas of art, such as painting, sculpting, printmaking and stage designing. Pablo Picasso was famous for continuously changing up his style and techniques throughout his career. His father, Don Jose Ruiz Blasco, was a painter and art teacher and he taught Picasso how to draw and paint from a young age but by the age of just 13 his skills were greater than his father's. Picasso's love for drawing meant that he wasn't interested in his school work and said 'For being a bad student, I was banished to the 'calaboose', a bare cell with whitewashed walls and a bench to sit on. I liked it there, because I took along a sketch pad and drew incessantly ... I could have stayed there forever, drawing without stopping'. Picasso moved, with his family, to Barcelona and got into School of Fine Arts, but didn't like how strict and ordered it was so he began to skip class and sketch the streets of Barcelona. At the age of 16 they moved to Madrid for Picasso to attend the Royal Academy of San Fernando, however he again became frustrated with having to focus on such classical subjects so he started to skip class and draw his surroundings. At 18 he moved back to Barcelona where he met a group of artists that inspired him to break away from the traditional methods and start experimenting with new ideas and that's what he did. 

In the 20th century he moved to France to open his own studio. Around this time one of his close friends, Carlos Casagemas, died and this was reflected in his artwork. He painted very depressing scenes and almost only green and blue shades; this was known as his 'Blue Period'. Picasso's most famous paintings were 'Blue Nude', 'La Vie' and 'The Old Guitarist'. 

La Vie, by Picasso
http://www.pablopicasso.org/images/paintings/la-vie.jpg

The 'Rose Period' started in 1905 and at this point he had largely recovered from the grieving of the loss of his close friend. He was deeply in love with his girlfriend, Fernannde Olivier, a french artist and model. He started to use warmer colours in his artwork, such as reds and oranges, to reflect how warm and content he was feeling inside. His most famous paintings from this period were 'Family at Saltimbanques', 'Gertrude Stein' and 'Two Nudes'. 

Two Nudes, by Picasso
http://everypainterpaintshimself.com/article_images_new/Two_Nudes.jpg

In 1907 Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d'Avignon which was a massive break through. Nothing had ever been painted like this before. It was a very abstract way of painting with a very angular and distorted style. This was the painting that was said to start off the new technique, Cubism, created by himself and his friend and fellow artist, Georges Braque. Cubism is where the objects in the painting have been broken up and reconstructed in a abstract way with different colours and shapes combined. This new way of thinking first shocked the art world, but quickly became intriguing and influential. Picasso's other most famous paintings in this style include, 'Three Women', 'Bread and Fruit Dish on a Table' and 'Girl with Mandolin'.

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, by Picasso
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4c/Les_Demoiselles_d'Avignon.jpg

Three Women, by Picasso
http://uploads0.wikiart.org/images/pablo-picasso/three-women-1908.jpg

The World War 1 made Picasso take a different turn to his work, going back to Realism and incorporating more dull and dark colours into his work; this was called his 'Classical Period' (1981-1927). His most famous paintings from this period were 'Three Women at the Spring', 'Two Women Running on the Beach/The Race' and 'The Pipes of Pan'. 

Three Women at the Spring, by Picasso
http://www.mkd.mk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Picasso-3-Women-at-spring.jpg

From 1927, Picasso started to experiment with the cultural movement, Surrealism. He was deeply affected by the Spanish Civil War, with the German bombing, that he wanted to create an anti-war painting to express his disgust and protest against war. This painting was named Guernica and was completed in 1937. It is thought to be the most well-known and emotional surrealist painting or all time, showing several human figures in all sorts of torture, shown in black, white and grey.

Guernica, by Picasso
http://knowledgelost.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/guernica.jpg

Picasso's later paintings were a lot more abstract in a child-like way, with bright colours and non-realistic figures and using more crude techniques. Picasso once said, 'When I was as old as these children (school age), I could draw like Raphael, but it took me a lifetime to learn to draw like them'. One year before his death, 1972, Picasso created a painting named, Self Portrait Facing Death. The painting is of an, almost ape-like, human head with a green face and red hair, very different from any of hie previous work. 

Self Portrait Facing Death, by Picasso
http://hyperallergic.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/picasso_facing-death.jpg

Sources:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/da_vinci_leonardo.shtml
http://www.leonardoda-vinci.org
http://www.wikiart.org/en/leonardo-da-vinci/mona-lisa
http://www.artcrimearchive.org/article?id=88001
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/leonardo-da-vinci/10202124/Leonardo-da-Vinci-Anatomy-of-an-artist.html
http://www.biography.com/people/pablo-picasso-9440021#blue-period-blue-nude-la-vie-and-other-works
http://www.biography.com/people/pablo-picasso-9440021#classical-period