Drawing Acts
Studies in Graphic Expression and Representation

This book explores the significance of the act of drawing, establishing new foundations in the appreciation of artistic drawings.

David Rosand (Author)

9781316637524, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 27 September 2016

443 pages
27.8 x 21.3 x 2.1 cm, 1.4 kg

'… this is a brilliant and penetrating book: learned, urbane, well-written … and above all informed by a deep, visual sensibility which makes his detailed analysis of individual works of art exceptionally full and compelling.' Apollo Magazine

Drawing Acts is about drawing, both as art and act. Taking the study of drawings beyond the traditional agenda of connoisseurship, David Rosand explores the significance of the making of drawings, the meaning in the line of the draftsman, and the recreative dimension of critical response. The book focuses on drawings by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Piranesi, Tiepolo and Picasso, as well as on the history and theory of the medium itself. It seeks to establish new foundations for the criticism and appreciation of drawing, which is often considered the most revealing record of artistic creativity, offering the most direct expression of the artistic self.

1. Criticism, connoisseurship, and the phenomenology of drawing
2. Disegno: the invention of an art
3. The handwriting of the self: Leonardo da Vinci
4. Raphael and the calligraphy of classicism
5. Disegni a stampa: the printed line
6. Michelangelo: the urgent gesture
7. Rembrandt's reach
8. Capriccio: the antic line.

Subject Areas: History of art / art & design styles [AC], The arts: general issues [AB]