Existing comment:
The full-scale preparatory drawing, or "cartoon," on the opposite wall is Raphael's final design for one of his best-known paintings, La Belle Jardiniere in the Louvre. A cartoon represents the end result of a long creative process during which the artist worked out the details of the composition through a series of preliminary sketches. In this case, Raphael continued to make minor changes even after the cartoon was completed: the laurel wreath encircling the head of John the Baptist in the drawing, for example, was eliminated in the painting.
To transfer the composition to the wooden panel on which La Belle Jardiniere was painted, the contour lines of the drawing were pricked and dusted with fine powder which passed through the tiny holes to the panel beneath. Because such drawings were necessarily damaged in the process, few Renaissance cartoons survive. This is the only full-scale compositional cartoon from the Renaissance in the United States. |