This medium began to flourish in the late 15th century and has become the workhorse of drawing utensils. While the material and technique are the focus of the exhibition, it also offers the opportunity to display some of the Picture Gallery’s finest and most famous drawings, including works by Leonardo, Bronzino, Sodoma, Tintoretto, Carracci, and many lesser-known, yet remarkable, artists, such as Elisabetta Sirani, one of the few female artists who rose to fame in seventeenth-century Bologna.

Entering the exhibition room, the sensuality of the medium becomes immediately apparent. The face and figure studies still hold the sound of the soft noise that the gliding chalk makes on the paper: be it in the large swooping lines that define the contours of Domenchino’s life-size putto, or the fine rendering of Giampetrino’s Madonna and Child. The famous ‘grotesque head’ by Leonardo da Vinci distils everything that we celebrate about his genius – curiosity, observation, experimentation and lateral thinking made visible in a perfectly depicted form. In imitation of Leonardo’s style is a drawing by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, called Sodoma, of a Head of a Young Man, whose intensity captivates the viewer.

Exhibitions have the realities of concerts (as opposed to listening to a recording) and in this show the physical properties of the items seem to speak louder. The necessity to see the real thing, rather than a reproduction or something on a screen is more pressing, be it the study of a stumbling figure by Bastianino, the pained Head of Seneca after Guido Reni or the drawing of the Head of Giuliano de’ Medici after a sculpture by Michelangelo brought to life by Tintoretto in a Pygmalion-like desire.

To further understand the physicality of the medium, we have installed a drawing desk in the gallery for our visitors to experience the feeling and sound of drawing with chalk on paper – even if it is just making one swoping line on a blank sheet.

'It's not just black and white: Renaissance and Baroque drawings in chalk and charcoal' will open until 16 March 2026. Visitor information is available here. 

Jacqueline Thalmann (Curator of the Picture Gallery)

Images:

Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci 1452-1519 Cloux), A grotesque head, Charcoal and black chalk (the contours pricked for transfer), JBS 19.

Sebastiano Filippi, called Bastianino (Lendinara/Vemeto 1532/4-1602 Ferrara), A nude man, stooping towards left, Black chalk with a little white (JBS 908).

Elisabetta Sirani (Bologna 1638-1665 Bologna), Head for a Madonna Black, red and a little white chalk, JBS 1032.

Domenico Zampieri, called Domenichino (Bologna 1581–1641 Naples), Cartoon for a flying putto. Black chalk (JBS 983).