CLEVELAND

Museum exhibit traces history of drawing

It’s the simplest form of creative expression and probably the average person’s first foray into art.

But drawing can be much more sophisticated than doodling and employ a creative vocabulary as extensive as oil painting or sculpture.

In a show of its drawings, the Cleveland Museum of Art broadly defines drawing as created by pen, pencil, pastels, chalk, charcoal, ink wash, watercolor and gouache paints, and in some cases even oil and spray paint.

For curatorial purposes, works on paper that are not prints or photographs tend to be called drawings, said Carter Foster, who curated the show with Diane DeGrazia.

The nearly 600-year survey of drawing shows the changing attitudes of artists and the public to the art form, and how drawing remains the center of most artists’ creative process.

For many, drawing is seen as a preparatory step for the creation of something else, most notably a painting. That was generally the purpose of the drawings from the early part of the show, covering the 15th and 16th centuries, from a Michelangelo study for a figure on the Sistine Chapel or a Federico Barocci drawing of Cupid that includes a grid pattern to help transpose the figure to canvas.

But even a first step can be a well-thought out and complete idea. Giorgio Vasari drew "The Risen Christ Adored by Saints and Angels" to show a patron, who hired him to paint an altar piece. It is so intimately rendered in brush point, ink and chalk that the drawing probably carries the emotional impact of the altar piece.

The drawings of the 17th and 18th centuries were larger and in some cases -- such as Giovanni Battista Piazzetta’s "A Young Woman Buying a Pink Flower from a Young Man" and Johann Wolfgang Baumgartner’s "St. Deiclus and the Boar" -- nearly as remarkable as oil paintings.

By the 18th century, drawings were starting to be seen as finished works, and hung as such for public viewing, said Foster, associate curator of drawings.

Subject matter moved away from religious themes, and even religious works were depicted with a modern sensibility.

Rembrandt van Rijn updated the Biblical story of Tobit, whose son restored the old man’s sight by rubbing his eyes with the organs of a giant fish. Rembrandt fashioned the son, Tobias, a surgeon, removing his father’ cataracts with a scalpel.

Benjamin West’s "Head of Screaming Man" is a marvel of economy -- you can nearly count the lines of black chalk he employed -- while Frederick Sandys used several colors of chalk to make his common-law wife, depicted as a classical beauty, materialize from a black abyss.

During the 19th century, color became much more important in drawings. Watercolor paintings, which had been considered drawings, were accepted on a level with oils, thanks to artists such as Winslow Homer and Joseph Mallord William Turner, who are included in the show.

Even for modern artists, traditional drawing remained an essential starting point. A wonderful sheet of sketches by Edgar Degas captures both his appreciation of tradition and revolutionary nature.

In the 20th century, the definition of drawing, much like any other definition of art, changed so much that it can no longer be easily explained.

Ellsworth Kelly’s "Study for Red Green Blue" is called a drawing, even though it was made with oil paint.

Foster acknowledged that it is not a drawing in the same sense as Michelangelo’s chalk study.

"Sometimes the line is difficult to draw. It’s a drawing in the sense that it’s preparatory," Carter said of Kelly. "He considers it a drawing himself. His finished painting was much different."

Barnett Newman, whose brush-applied ink drawing "Untitled" would be seen by most people as an abstract painting, purposely tried to expand the definition of drawing.

"Instead of using outlines, instead of making shapes or setting off spaces, my drawing declares the space," he once said.

Even though the title of the show is "Master Drawings From the Cleveland Museum of Art," it might be best to forget about definitions and just enjoy the work: Charles Burchfield’s creepy view of Salem, Ohio; the cartoonish cherubs in Albrecht Durer’s "Ascension"; the bright light of Canaletto’s "Capriccio: A Palace with a Courtyard by the Lagoon"; Mary Cassatt’s "The Letter," which shows how she changed elements in preparation for an etching; and Francisco de Goya’s "Prostitute Soliciting a Fat, Ugly Man," which takes sides as to how we are supposed to judge the two participants of illegal commerce.

"Master Drawings From the Cleveland Museum of Art" will be up through Oct. 15. Information: (216) 421-7350, (888) CMA-0033 or www.clevelandart.org