The art of drawing has a staggeringly long history. The oldest known cave paintings are over 60 000 years old, but before humans created these images with an intricate sense of material knowledge they undoubtably drew. At some point humans began drawing lines in the sand with a stick, painting with pieces of charcoal on the side of a hill or maybe carving lines with a sharp rock. We are not sure of when this happened, but that it is an ancient method of expression is clear.
Drawing as sketch, documentation, art
The art of drawing is universal and commonplace. We have all at some point spent time engaging in the strange abstraction of transforming our complicated world into thin lines on a flat surface. Drawing can be used to sketch thoughts and ideas, as documentation and as a form of art with its own unique possibilities. It is a form of expression for our inner self and carries our desire to communicate. With drawing we can show what we have seen, thought or felt. Or we just want to be surprised — the doodle became a person!
Hundreds of pictures/drawings
With this exhibition we try to approach the art of drawing in a broad sense. We display hundreds of drawings/pictures, often made on paper, where the line is the most important element. In the first part of the exhibition we highlight a variety of works in the rich history of the art of drawing. This is then followed by a selection of pictures from our collection from the 18th century and onward, with an emphasis on the art of drawing from a technical viewpoint. Out of all the fantastic drawings in the collection we have made a subjective selection that will represent different eras and genres within this exciting field of art.