Ashmolean, Titian to Canaletto

The Ashmolean's latest exhibition follows their recent Great British Drawings, and can be seen as a continuation of the British Museum's Italian Renaissance Drawings (2010). All serve as reminders of the fundamental importance of drawing in art, and of drawing's many purposes - drawings may be executed as studies of light, texture and form; or as experiments, or educational tools for a workshop; they may be intended as finished works to be bought by collectors, or made as studies for paintings (we see several squared up for transfer onto a larger surface). In this exhibition, the Ashmolean seeks to refute the assertion of Vasari in his Lives (1568) that the Venetians neglected drawing and started work directly with paint on canvas. This opinion was followed by other Florentine writers (despite the fact that the Uffizi housed an important collection of Venetian works on paper) and by later authorities, including Sir Joshua Reynolds. The notion perhaps has a particular attractiveness: while Vasari had an interest in contrasting the undisciplined Venetians - as he saw them - with the Florentines and their meticulous attention to disegno, there is also an undeniable appeal in the idea of Titian, Bellini and Tintoretto spontaneously creating work without painstaking mathematical preparation - it fits the picture of instinctive art, such as we associate with Shakespeare and Mozart.

Yet, as this exhibition make clear, the Venetian masters produced wonderful drawings, generally using chalk and charcoal rather than silverpoint. The first masters on display are Giovanni Bellini (active 1459 - d.1516) and Vittore Carpaccio (1460/6 - c.1525/6). Bellini's 'Portrait of a Man' (on loan from Christ Church) uses subtle tonal effects to create a finely modelled head with a real sense of character: the creases and folds in the face give it a 'lived-in' look, and the textures of hair and soft cap are superbly rendered. Carpaccio's studies of female heads are more ethereal - as befits sketches for angels in the altarpiece of the Glory of St Ursula - and use shimmering white highlights to convey the sense of streaming light. I was particualrly taken by the sadly vulnerable-looking dragon in the centre of Carpaccio's townscape with figures, 'The Triumph of St George'. This work also made clear the Venetians' profound sense of drama, with a variety of expressive and theatrical attitudes among the bystanders. Titian picked up on the sculptural and luminous qualities of these artists, using drawing to explore contour, volume, and the effects of transient light. Above all is the idea of public theatre. Everything, from the knotted muscles of an executioner's legs to the fall of cloth, is a source of drama: the 'Drapery study for the figure of St Bernardino' is a study in the expressive qualities of a garment's folds, as we look at the saint from behind. There is a free and creative use of materials: charcoal is dampened and rubbed to create subtle shading, blurring the transitions beneath a chiaroscuro effect and creating a hypnotic, flowing pattern. We see Bellini, Carpaccio and Titian using blue paper to bring out the range of tones in their subjects. Alongside these premier league names, it is instructive to learn about other Venetian artists, such as Domenico Campagnola, a specialist in Veneto landscapes where rustic fortifications and pastoral figures appear against distant hills; or Andrea Meldolla (Schiavone, c.1510-63), whose sinuous figures and sense of vivid composition are illustrated by 'Presentation in the Temple' and an unidentified female figure. Lorenzo Lotto (c.480-1556/7) creates in 'Head of a bearded man' one of the most memorable pictures in the show - a mass of soft, refined touches coalesce into a wonderfully characterful face, the textures of beard and skin immediately registering on our imagination.

In the second room, the Master is Jacopo Tintoretto (1518/19-1594), for whose practice figure drawing was of great importance. He drew from models, wax sculptures (some small models as would have existed in a workshop have been specially created), statues and as many copies of Michelangelo as he could acquire. Twisting and rippling torsos are displayed alongside vigorous copies of busts, where the emphasis is on volume and dramatic tension of light and shade. But these are not simply figurative exercises. There is, too, a strong feeling for character: the study of a bust of Vitellius evokes a stern and gloomy Roman personality.

After the brilliance of the earlier masters, the third room feels relatively flat. Later generations worked under the influence of Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese and Bellini, and the Baroque drawings do not seem to add much to the vocabulary, apart from taking it to even more spectacular operatic heights.  Yet it is valuable to learn about the teaching practice of Palma Giovane and to come upon artists such as Bernardo Strozzi and Francesco Maffei. Moving into the eighteenth century, two of the most striking images were the 'Head of a Youth' (used as the poster for the exhibition) and 'Standing Youth Seen from Behind' , both by Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (1682-1754), where the broad touches, melting forms, psychological acuity and delight in light are applied to real-life figures. Giambattista Tiepolo's 'Study of a foreshortened head' achieves an intense drama through the orientation and lighting of the subject that we saw earlier in Tintoretto. One senses in these later artists the tools of the Old Masters being exploited with delight and fresh vision.

The exhibition ends with drawings by Canaletto among other scenes of Venice, as the fading republic becomes a consumable tourist experience. It is followed by a room of visual responses by Jenny Saville, an important contemporary artist who I last saw in Oxford's Museum of Modern Art a few years ago. I found I didn't have much energy left to take in this room, though a quick survey made clear how Saville had responded to the free and confident handling of Titian, the array of postures and the dramatic potentalities of the figure on display in the Venetian works. There's an improvisatory quality, too - palimpsests of forms and lines - that convey an energy and attack which connects Saville with the rest of the show. These days we are perhaps happier to see drawing as an end in itself, and prefer the sense of being in front of a performance on paper than a polished masterpiece in paint. A drawing does not call for the same reverence as an altarpiece does; looking at a sketch with various subject, or several goes at the same subject, is rather like listening to a pianist practise before a concert - in some ways, a more intimate and rewarding experience than the final performance. I found 'Studies for the Coronation of the Virgin' by Paolo Veronese (1528-88) particularly engaging in this respect, as you see him work his way down the paper, varying the configurations of the central group and trying out gestures and attitudes of the surrounding figures. This work, too, was lent by Christ Church; many other works were lent by the Uffizi. With the Ashmolean's own holdings, this allowed an exhibition which triumphantly disproved Vasari's assertion and allowed us to enjoy, in a different light, the achievement of Venetian art. a footnote: the descriptive panels for each work were extremely well written, and an object lesson in how the terms of art, when accurately applied, can enhance our appreciation of an image.