A Study in Genius

Through the generosity of Her Majesty The Queen, Australia has been privileged to see in recent years three exhibitions from the Royal Library, all of which were devoted to the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci. The present exhibition is a rather more ambitious project in that it is the first to be held in Australia that includes examples of virtually the full chronological range of drawings and watercolours in the Royal Collection: from the Italian Renaissance to the 19th Century. The fifty works selected are rich in individual quality but, furthermore, they illustrate the sustained excellence of the Royal Collections.

The magnificence of the Renaissance is shown in the ten drawings of Leonardo, which illustrate his extraordinary range of interests, his vision and the exquisiteness of his drawing; in Raphael there is a sense of completeness as though even the sketch is a final consummate statement; and in Michelangelo there is indelible power and strength, whilst works by Perugino, Sebastiano and Salviati illustrate further the Renaissance achievement. Holbein’s majestic and unerring portraits are very different; here there is that sense of definition and commitment of the Northern Renaissance. It is a quality to be seen also in the clarity of the drawing of Durer and the fantastic imagery of Hirschvogel, which is in some contrast to the sheer emotive vigour of the 17th century drawings of Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni and Guercino. The sense of classicism is then restored in the works of Claude Lorrain, Nicolas Poussin and Canaletto. The final group in the selection is of English artists, Sanby, Harding, Nash and Simpson, all of which concentrate with characteristic quiet persuasion, on architectural themes.

For this exhibition of such undoubted quality we are indebted to Her Majesty The Queen for permitting these works to travel to Australia in the Bicentennial Year.

We express our thanks to the Librarian, Oliver Everett, to the Curator of the Print Room, the Honourable Mrs. Jane Roberts, who wrote the catalogue, to the Assistant Curator-Exhibitions, Miss Theresa-Mary Morton and to all at the Royal Library who have been associated with the planning and preparation of this exhibition. We must also acknowledge the generous support of our sponsor, British Airways, for without them we simply could not afford to present such a marvellous exhibition.

We acknowledge too with gratitude the indemnity provision offered by the Australian Government through the Department of Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories.

Finally my thanks to my colleagues at the National Gallery of Victoria and the Queensland Art Gallery for their co-operation in participating in the tour of ‘A Study in Genius: Master Drawings and Watercolours from the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen’.

Sourced from: Edmund Capon, ‘Foreword,’ in Jane Roberts, A Study in Genius: Master Drawings and Watercolours from the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1988, p. 4.