Gemma Brace
curator and writer

Co-curated exhibition with Dr Iain Biggs for RWA, 2015.

Lines in a Landscape featured works by some of the masters of Western European drawing – Van Dyck, Canaletto, Gainsborough, and eight works by Claude Lorrain, the greatest landscape artist of the seventeenth century – alongside fascinating examples by lesser-known names. From Italianate villas to the Dutch lowlands, Lines in a... explored how the act of drawing can capture the unchanging form of an ancient building, a fleeting moment intensely observed, or the fantasies of an artist’s imagination. The exhibition celebrated the richness and variety of the drawings in the Royal Collection, while making connections with contemporary drawing practice shown alongside in Drawn.

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Images: (top)  Claude Gellée, called Le Lorrain (1604/5 – 82), ‘A landscape with a dance (The Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca?)’, c.1663, Pen and ink, grey and brown washes, white heightening, over black chalk, on paper washed buff (RCIN 913076), Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017 (bottom) Gaspar van Wittel (1653-1736), 'Hillside Landscape with a village and umbrella 

pines', c. 1700-10, pen and brown ink with grey wash, RCIN 905799, Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017.