Fra Angelico to Leonardo: Italian Renaissance Drawings
British Museum, until 25 July
The latest exhibition in the Round Reading Room is an awe-inspiring collection of Italian Renaissance drawings, the kind of display likely to be seen only once in a lifetime. It is a large show of relatively small things, offering 100 examples of the finest drawings made between 1400 and 1510, entirely selected from two collections: the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi in Florence, and the British Museum itself. Here we see the birth of drawing as an independent art form, and not simply as a preliminary study for a painting. During this period, drawings began to be collected for themselves, to be valued as examples of specifically graphic skills, and artists responded by making drawings for this new market. If today there are still those who consider drawings to be lesser art works than paintings, this exhibition may help to dispel their prejudice.
The handsome but hefty catalogue (£30 in paperback), written by Hugo Chapman and Marzia Faietti, is an excellent and informative reference book, but not the sort of thing to carry round as an exhibition guide.
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