The sketch to see the creative gesture of the painter, his “soul”

The very beautiful journey is not chronological but thematic and scientific as well as aesthetic, mixing the different meanings and uses of the sketch, from van der Weyden to the painters of the 20th century via Rembrandt, Jordaens, Van Dijck, Rubens, Courbet, Ensor, Khnopff or Magritte without forgetting a aspect that we did not immediately imagine: sculpture!

The splendor of van Orley, when Brussels was the center of the world

Along the way, we also discover some large paintings, masterpieces of the museum, either unfinished (like sketches) or hung next to the preparatory drawings or the underlying drawing revealed by infrared reflectography.

As soon as you enter, a sentence from Diderot sets the tone: “The sketch is the work of warmth and genius. It is the soul of the painter which spreads freely on the canvas.”

The sketch is therefore not a simple draft, on paper, on canvas, or even on a board, it expresses the intimacy of the artist, his creative gesture like the title of the beautiful catalog of the exhibition. She explains how a work of art is born.

We can certainly see how a given artist “squared” his sketch to enlarge it on the canvas. But, very early on, we saw the sketch as already being a work. To our contemporary eyes, the sketch, with its not finishedthe spontaneity of the gesture, often even appears more modern, more daring than the finished canvas.

Rubens, of course

At the center of the exhibition are the sketches of Rubens, a treasure of the museum, including the twelve sketches for the decoration of the Torre de la Parada near Madrid.

Rubens innovated by using the sketch painted on panel as he had seen done in Venice, with light touches, a rapid line. Right next to it, we have judiciously placed sketches by Antoine Wiertz (1806-1865) as virtuoso as those of Rubens!

If Rubens’ paintings are sometimes, in part, the fruit of his workshop, the sketches are indeed the most direct expression of his genius. They served as a test bed, or a model to present to sponsors for a future work or became models for the workshop.

A recent exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp focused on “tronies”, these painted studies, portraits of strangers, often very expressive, on a neutral background: an old man, a laughing man, a child… which were often the study of a character, an attitude and which were then used in large compositions. We find this at this exhibition whose Head studies of Rubens formerly called ““Negro heads”.

The journey begins with the revelation brought by the discovery of the underlying drawings of exhibited works by van der Weyden, Van Orley or even Ensor. We can see the line, the hatching, the changes made afterwards.

Decapitated

The sketch is often drawn to study the rendering of the materials, the composition, the drapes… We find at the exhibition the magnificent example of Three studies by Watteau of a woman wearing a small hat. And, next to it, judiciously placed, a study of female silhouettes by Ensor.

Louis Gallait liked to prepare his immense historical paintings with sketches like the Last honors to the Counts of Egmont and Hornes. We see the painting that Gallait made of the head of a man who had just been decapitated and which he took as a model. A magnificent drawing by him also shows crossbowmen.

The great Brussels museum is celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the Surrealism Manifesto.

The sketch may have helped in the composition of Jordaens’ bold painting, The allegory of fertility, with the center entirely taken by a naked woman, from behind.

The sketch can sometimes be so confused with a finished work that doubt remains, as Rik Wouters shows.

The invention of the color tube in 1841 allowed artists to focus on motifs. A “pleinairist” artist like Théodore Fourmois (1814-1871) shows a fine example of a sketch made in nature and more modern than the painting that resulted in the studio. The restoration of the sketches showed a case where we still discovered the artist’s thumb which held the cardboard and grains of sand caught in the paint!

We still admire De Braekeleer’s series of sketches made from life on a fire in Antwerp.

The last room is devoted to the sculpture sketch with the small paper model of a Walter Leblanc sculpture or that of the Calder sculpture placed in front of the museum. With the virtuoso sculptural sketches of Constantin Meunier and Joseph Rulot.

Drafts, Brussels Museum of Fine Arts, until February 16.