Flowing Lines of Grace
Drawing Drapery in the Late Nineteenth Century
26 July - 7 October 2016
RA Library Print Room
Tuesday – Friday
10am – 1pm and 2 – 5pm
Complimentary entry with a valid Royal Academy exhibition ticket or £3 General Admission ticket. Friends of the RA and under 16s go free.
Friends of the RA go free
The classical revival in British art and sculpture during the second half of the nineteenth century fuelled the widespread fascination for all things antique.
For Frederic Lord Leighton PRA (1830–1896), Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema RA (1836–1912) and George Frederic Watts RA (1817–1904), the drapery of classical Greek sculpture represented an aesthetic and physical ideal. In numerous studies of drapery, they strove to emulate the style, folds and forms of their sculptural counterparts; these drawings played a crucial part in the artistic process of creating paintings that abounded with scenes from mythology and the imagined daily life of ancient Greece and Rome.
Featuring drawings, engravings and contemporary publications from the RA’s Historic Book collection, this display explores the influence of classical drapery on these artists’ work and the ways in which it was perceived to represent the epitome of beauty.
Gallery
Study of an elaborate sleeve, Early 1860s
Studies of drapery for the fresco 'Justice: A Hemicycle of Lawgivers', 1859
Study for Perseus and Andromeda, About 1891
Eight drapery studies, Probably 1870s or later
Drawing texture
Enjoy the total absorption of careful looking and rendering using traditional drawing techniques. Throughout this two-day course, participants will focus on creases and folds in a variety of man made and organic textured surfaces.
Artist Tanya Wood will lead an exclusive workshop inspired and informed by traditional drawing skills, works in the Royal Academy collection, contemporary artists and her own practice of meticulous realist pencil drawing. Participants will work from the close observation and scrutiny of a variety of textured surfaces within the Academy’s historic Life Room.
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