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Gallery 1
Andrea del Verrocchio and His Circle
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Read about the works in this gallery, or view images from the exhibition (see below). |
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"Your shadows and highlights fuse without hatching or strokes, as does smoke." Writing in 1490–92, Leonardo thus described the manner of drawing that would make him famous. Yet, the lion's share of the credit for exploring this new technique should probably go to Leonardo's teacher, Andrea del Verrocchio (1434/37–1488), the great Florentine sculptor and painter who was, along with Piero del Pollaiuolo, one of the first Tuscan artists to experiment successfully with a sfumato rendering of shadows. The drawings by Verrocchio and his circle that are on view reveal that other innovations often credited to Leonardo—for example, the quick sketching of figures from different points of view and the measured survey drawings of the proportions of the horse—actually may have originated in Verrocchio's workshop. Leonardo probably entered the workshop in the 1460s, and it was there that he may have acquired the new approach to drawing, along with more traditional skills and practices. Speaking later from the vantage point of a teacher, Leonardo advised, "The artist should first exercise his hand by copying drawings from the hand of a good master."
Among the highlights of Verrocchio's career as a draftsman are exquisite full-scale drawings, or cartoons, of the heads of young women; according to Giorgio Vasari, the young Leonardo closely imitated these in style and technique. Lorenzo di Credi (ca. 1457–1536), another gifted pupil of Verrocchio, became the artistic heir to the master upon his death and was also greatly influenced by the young Leonardo. The exhibition includes two studies attributed to Lorenzo; judging by the handwriting, one of these sheets may have come from a sketchbook by Verrocchio. A page from a dismembered sketchbook of 1487–88 by Francesco di Simone Ferrucci, another artist connected with Verrocchio's workshop, further illustrates the types of compendia that were current in Verrocchio's sphere of influence. Leonardo would be a diligent keeper of sketchbooks and notebooks throughout his life.
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