Van Gogh's The Vicarage in Nuenen (above, 1885) features in the Old Masters show at Dulwich Picture Gallery © Art Gallery of Ontario
Exhibition: Drawing Attention, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, until January 17 2010
Arranged in roughly chronological order, gathered together by country of origin, this series of drawings is a revelation.
The earliest pictures are Italian metalprints - Francesco Salviati's Lamentation Over the Dead Christ (1540) is a delicate composition in watery brown ink, while Baccio Bandarelli's Four Female Nudes are made substantial women by careful crosshatching along the handmade grey paper.
It's fascinating to see such ancient sketches and impressions up close, as fresh as if they were taken from a life drawing class only yesterday.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Charlemagne Leads Angelica Away From Roland (circa 1785). Black chalk and brown wash and traces of graphite on laid paper © Art Gallery of Ontario
We catch a glimpse of a witty artist doodling in Guercino's strip of paper titled A Witch, Two Bats, and a Demon in Flight. The central figure has a potato-like ogre's head, then three ink spots on either side have been rapidly added to with scratchy wings and claws, as if the marginalia have suddenly come alive.
The early French drawings are more formally finished. Herbert Robert's 1763 architectural sketch, View of the Vaulting of St Peter’s Taken from an Upper Cornice, shows the massive light-filled dome in warm russet chalk and woolly circles give the impression of rounded carvings.
The human figures Robert dashed in as an afterthought bring it to life. Some pointing upwards at the monumental space, and others in the foreground, peeking daringly down over the edge.
Edgar Degas, Danseuse Vue de Dos, "Grand Battement a la Seconde" (circa 1885-1890). Black chalk heightened with white chalk on green laid paper. © Art Gallery of Ontario
Edgar Degas' Danseuse Vue de Dos "Grande Battement a la Seconde" is part of his series of ballerina pictures.
Rapid, dramatic black chalk strokes immediately establish the dancer in her tutu as a stocky, muscular athlete and a dash of white across her shoulderblade and shiny slipper also help bring her form to life.
Eugène Delacroix's The Bride of Lammermoor (1826) shows the artist exploring composition and colour. In watercolour and gouache over a graphite background sketch, he scatters gobbets of blood across a tormented woman breathing her last.
Eugène Delacroix, La Fiancee de Lammermoor (circa 1826). Graphite, watercolour and gouache on wove paper. © Art Gallery of Ontario (2001)
From the fireplace, a barely dressed woman appears to stare defiantly out at the viewer with wide eyes.
Rather than a deranged murderess, she looks more to me like a resourceful, pragmatic character who has simply dealt with a problem.
Other surprising highlights include a costume design for a Grotesque Musician by Daniel Rabel in bright watercolour highlighted with gold and silver.
It dates from 1627, but with its colourful modernity and economical lines it could be a 20th century Leon Bakst design for the Ballets Russes.
Pablo Picasso, Head of a Man (1913)
Van Gogh's 1884 drawing The Vicarage at Neunen hints at the artist's state of mind. Ominous pencil cross-hatching is built up obsessively, to create a dark house looming out of the landscape.
Angular diagonal slashes give the impression of tree branches in motion against prickly vertical lines, while windowpanes delineated with bright white crosses add to the uneasy atmosphere.
In the final galleries, more modern artworks shift into colour: Sonia Delaunay uses vibrant patches of wax crayon, Jackson Pollock's untitled doodle explodes in ink spatters like a burst balloon, while Henry Moore combines wax crayons, chalks and ink to show the discomfort of people sheltering from an air raid in the Tube, with their pale forms looming out of the darkness.
The most compelling image, for me, is Egon Schiele's deceptively simple 1917 Portrait of a Girl.
Its thick lines appear drawn at speed, and the eye jumps over the blank space in the middle of the paper between the model's assured, challenging gaze and the strained tension in her fingers as she wrings her hands together.
Through one quick drawing the artist captures an essential opposition in his model's character, far more immediately than in a worked and reworked finished painting.
Admission £4-£9 (free for children). Call 020 8693 5254 or visit the Gallery online.
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