Le jeune dessinateur, 2012
GPE-0127
Lithograph and original pencil drawing by the artist
60 x 60 cm
Signed on the recto, bottom centre: “Giulio Paolini”
Autograph numbering on the recto, bottom centre
80 in Arabic numerals from 1/80 to 80/80
20 in Roman numerals from I/XX to XX/XX
From one edition to another the pencil drawing features a different arrangement of the seven rectangles, varying from being grouped together in the central area, to being scattered even beyond the edges of the room-frame.
Associazione ProMuseo, Lugano
The print was commissioned from the artist by the ProMuseo, Associazione degli Amici del Museo Cantonale d’Arte di Lugano, to support its activities. After the multiples by Not Vital (2007) and Amedeo Martegani (2009), Paolini's work represents the third edition produced by ProMuseo (since 2015 renamed Associazione Amici Sostenitori del Museo d’arte della Svizzera Italiana, following the merger between the Museo della Città di Lugano and the Museo Cantonale d’Arte, resulting in the MASI Museo d’arte della Svizzera Italiana).
Double-sided three-flap white cardboard folder with handle, closed format 70 x 62 x 1 cm; on the front board white label with titles in black and red (publisher, author, title). Contains the plate and a sheet with the colophon, a note by the artist, the entry curated by Bettina Della Casa, and the biographical profile by Maddalena Disch.
Includes information regarding publisher, printing technique, measurements, and edition size.
Note by the artist, Il personaggio che vediamo..., referring to the subject of the print, entry for the work by Bettina Della Casa and text by Maddalena Disch concerning the artist's poetics.
The male figure in the foreground, portrayed from behind and intent on drawing – borrowed from Le jeune dessinateur (c. 1737) by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin – is seated at the threshold to a room viewed from above.1 The walls of the room feature seven paintings: six of them reproduce paintings also by Chardin, while the seventh is hidden by the portfolio that the draughtsman holds before him. The area corresponding to the empty space of the room has seven rectangles outlined in pencil – their trapezoidal shape inscribes them in the perspective from above – arranged differently in each copy of the edition size.
The seven rectangles allude to the drawing that the "young draughtsman" is outlining, that is, to the attempts, which are constantly renewed, to copy onto the sheet what he sees before him. In a broader sense, the room recalls the frame of a painting, while the variable constellation of rectangles recalls the countless potential faces of an image in fieri.
The original collage from which the print originates is documented in the online Catalogue Raisonné of the works on paper at number GPC-1247 (cf. also the variant from the same year Studio per “Sulla soglia” (Le Jeune dessinateur), GPC-1370).
1 Chardin's draughtsman is the protagonist of several of Paolini's works, beginning with Scena muta (stanza dell’autore), 1998-99 (GPO-0826); it is especially present in a group of works on paper made between 2016 and 2018 (GPC-1706, GPC-1873, GPC-1551, GPC-1623, GPC-1624, GPC-1646, GPC-1647, GPC-1953). The motif of the room viewed from above appeared for the first time in several works dated 1998-99 (cf. among the works on paper GPC-0924, GPC-0976, GPC-0977, GPC-0978, among the paintings GPO-0828, GPO-0830); in 2005 it appeared in the print Rue principale (GPE-0113), while in 2015 it was used in several works on paper (cf. GPC-1484, GPC-1486, GPC-1856).
Figure in the foreground: Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Un jeune écolier qui dessine, c. 1737, oil on wood, 18 x 15.5 cm, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.
Clockwise from bottom left:
• Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Un panier de pêches avec des raisins, poires et noix, 18th century, oil on canvas, 32.5 x 41 cm, private collection.
• Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin, Les attributs des arts, 1731, oil on canvas, 140 x 215 cm, Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris.
• Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Jeune dessinateur taillant son crayon, 1737, oil on canvas, 80 x 65 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
• Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Les bulles de savon, c. 1734, oil on canvas, 61 x 63.2 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
• Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin, Les attributs des sciences, 1731, oil on canvas, 141 x 219 cm, Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris.
• Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Faiseur de château de cartes, 1735, oil on canvas, 81 x 101 cm, Rotschild Collections, Waddesdon.
| • | G. Paolini, Il personaggio che vediamo..., note to the work published on the title-page included with the print edition and in the promotional brochure published by Pro Museo Associazione Amici Sostenitori del Museo Cantonale d'Arte, Lugano, in 2012, on the occasion of the creation of the print. |
