Works of dazzling beauty by Spanish master draftsmen

Spanish draftsmen of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries created some exquisite works of dazzling beauty and inventiveness. Though often well versed in the traditions of Italy and Flanders, they developed their own signature techniques and departed from academic conventions of representing the human figure. This original, visionary, and fantastic aspect is a defining hallmark of the ‘Spanish manner’.

This exhibition is the first dedicated to the tradition of Spanish draftsmanship to be held in New York. A curatorial note elaborates: “The show begins with a large ensemble encompassing both preliminary sketches and finished studies that were made in important centers of artistic activity in seventeenth-century Spain. Groups of works by Golden Age masters Jusepe de Ribera (1591–1652) and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682) reveal the development of their distinctive drawing styles and their deft handling of different media over time.

Key examples by their contemporaries Vicente Carducho (c. 1576–1638) and Juan Carreño de Miranda (1614–1685) represent the breadth of accomplishment among Spanish draftsmen in preparing commissioned works or studies for their own use. Two 18th-century works by the court artists Mariano Salvador Maella and Francisco Bayeu highlight their drawing practice, emphasizing the use of colored papers and contrasting white chalk, techniques also used by other celebrated practitioners of European neoclassicism.

The final section centers on twenty-two sheets by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746–1828), whose drawings are rarely presented in the context of his Spanish predecessors. Nearly all the works by Goya shown formed part of the eight cycles of drawings made between the late eighteenth century and his death, which have been described as “albums.” For the artist, these remarkable records of things seen, remembered, and imagined served as an expressive end in themselves. They also attest to the continuity of Goya’s thematic interests with those of his Spanish forebears and represent the culmination in the nineteenth century of a distinctly Spanish mode of draftsmanship.

‘The Spanish Manner: Drawings From Ribera to Goya’ is on view at the Frick Collection, 1 East 70th Street, Manhattan.