Art Institute of Chicago

Study of a Nude Seen from the Back, and Two Studies of an Arm (recto); Nude Seen from the Back, with Subsidiary Studies of a Shoulder and Leg (verso)

Perino del Vaga

Date

c. 1528

Medium

Pen and iron gall ink (recto) and pen and iron gall ink, with touches of red chalk (verso) on cream laid paper

Culture

Italy

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

The two sides of this balanced sheet of anatomical drawings reflect the probing mind and line of an artist who trained in the workshop of Raphael, one of the finest draftsmen of the Italian Renaissance. His talented pupil Perino del Vaga explores the front and back of a nude male figure, using two very different graphic methods. On one side, his line is enhanced with hatching that gives his studies sculptural form. On the other side, he restricts himself to pure line in what becomes a kind of calligraphy of the pen. We even see him testing that pen in a series of rapid squiggles to the left of the figure.

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