Spanish Manner

This elegantly designed, fully illustrated volume presents exquisite drawings by Spanish artists over the course of two centuries, featuring works by Ribera, Murillo and Goya from public and private collections in the New York area. Published to accompany a major exhibition at The Frick Collection in New York, this book presents the character, range and depth of the Spanish tradition of drawing from the early 17th to the early 19th century. These extraordinary works share a distinctiveness of technique, subject and mood that sets them apart from Italianate examples produced on the Peninsula in the same period - in other words, they represent a specifically 'Spanish manner'. Although Italian Renaissance principles of figure drawing and perspective were practiced by Spanish draftsmen, the greatest of them also employed techniques of dazzling idiosyncrasy: lines dart and dash freely over the paper as if the hand of the artist could not be restrained, and energetic splotches of ink wash enrich forms. Many of the themes favoured by these artists - fantastic creatures, murderers and martyrdoms, and unusual treatmants of the human body - also distinguish these works.