Drawings
European drawings from the 15th century to the present — studies, sketches, and finished works in pen, chalk, charcoal, and watercolor by masters including Rembrandt, Dürer, and Degas.
The working sheet: thought, anatomy, and trial on paper.
rawing is an artist’s least mediated medium—the preliminary sketch, the anatomical study from life, the corrected compositional error left bare on the sheet. Because a draftsman's hand is revealed so directly in chalk, charcoal, or ink, drawings provide the primary evidence for attribution and creative process.
The Getty’s collection highlights that working vulnerability: Rembrandt’s sparing washes, Géricault’s muscular anatomical studies, and Degas’s sharp pastels capturing movement off-guard. Free from the formal obligations of finished salon paintings, these sheets preserve the immediate mechanics of artistic invention.
