LEONARDO – DÜRER. Drawings on Colored Ground. Part 1, Focus on Albrecht Dürer
In our film, Ralph Gleis, Director General of the Albertina, and Christof Metzger, the museum’s Chief Curator, engage in a conversation about a quiet revolution in the history of drawing: the conscious use of colored or tinted paper in the Renaissance.
At the heart of their discussion is the exhibition “Leonardo – Dürer. Renaissance Master Drawings on Colored Ground”, which traces, for the first time in depth, the fascinating interplay of materiality, color, and artistic reflection.
The introduction of colored paper — an invention by Italian Renaissance artists around 1400 — marked a radical expansion of the possibilities of drawing. Instead of relying solely on line and shading on white ground, artists could now create more nuanced gradations of light and dark, modeling bodies with greater plasticity.
Through their conversation, Gleis and Metzger show how this technical innovation spread and evolved, eventually reaching northern Europe, where artists like Albrecht Dürer adopted and adapted it in their own ways.
It becomes clear that the choice of colored paper was never incidental: it reflected a heightened artistic sensitivity. The medium transformed drawings from mere preparatory studies into independent works of art, capable of conveying light, atmosphere, and psychological depth.
The exhibition unfolds this narrative through key sheets by Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, and other Renaissance masters. It offers new insights not only into their techniques but also into the evolving perception of humanity and the world — a growing awareness of individuality, emotion, and corporeality.
Our film invites viewers to experience these shifts: the deliberate selection of blue, red, or grey-toned papers becomes a mirror of a changing worldview. It shows how technical mastery, theoretical reflection, and aesthetic feeling were intimately intertwined.
Ultimately, the drawing on colored ground emerges as a medium through which the Renaissance itself reveals its spirit: an age of light, knowledge — and the rediscovery of humanity.
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