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400
Middle Ages
Throughout the Middle Ages (400-1400 CE), drawings were produced primarily to express religious messages and stories of the Bible. Monks used drawing and painting to illustrate Bibles and prayer books for royal and wealthy families. During the Middle Ages, drawing became primarily a preparatory stage in creating paintings, rather than a finished product, so very few still survive in museums and art collections today. -
Mar 16, 1300
Renaissance
Drawing began to take the form we recognize today during the Renaissance. In Italy, drawing became recognized as a respectable art form because of the rise of the use of paper. Drawing became the foundation of all art work; art students were trained in drawing before their training in other forms of art - painting, sculpture, or architecture. -
Baroque Period
During the 1600s and 1700s, the Baroque period introduced a new style of drawing that included liveier forms with flowing lines. During this time, artists also began using water color and ink washes. Another characteristic of the Baroque Period was the Counter-Reformation. -
1800s and 1900s
Innovation defines the advancements of the 19th and 20th centuries in the art form of drawing. Pencils were first manufactured early in the 19th century and quickly became the most preferred drawing tools. Ingres and Goya were the principles artists spearheading the use of this new tool. -
Ancient Greece
The Ancient Greeks have several lasting artifacts of their drawing. The vases and pottery that were drawn or painted on by Ancient Greeks exhibit their graceful, decorative use of drawing. The Greeks use drawing to depict scences of battles and myths. -
Pre-historic
The earliest known drawing dates back to 30,000-10,000 BCE, and they were found on cave walls of Altamira, Spain and Lascaux, France, located in northern Spain and southern France. Other early drawings were scratched, carved, or pained onto primitve tools. -
Ancient Egypt
Early Egyptians also decorated the walls of their temples and tombs by carving scences of daily life, hieroglyphics and religious deities, or gods, as early as 3,000 BC. Similar drawings have also been found drawn with ink on Egyptian papyrus, a paper-like material made from the papyrus plant that grew along the Nile River. Egyptian drawings used a flat, linear style.
