#2

Interior of St. Peter's Illuminated
Louis-Jean Desprez
1776-1784

Talking about the different elements of drawing has really allowed me to see the complexities it involves. I chose an interior drawing of Saint Peter’s by Louis-Jean Desprez. This drawing was mainly done in black pen and I chose it due to the lighting dynamic and detail. There is heavy use of line that allows the drawing to contain many little, specific details. A close look allows you to see that the lines themselves aren’t even completely straight and that makes me wonder if the artist freehanded the drawing. Shading is also heavily used in the drawing, but it seems that the shading is created with the brush and grey wash rather than the pen. In the foreground, there is a giant pillar that is heavily shaded, as well as several well-detailed people (only the ones closest to the pillar) that are, again, shaded to show the dramatic effect of the illumination coming from the center-right of the piece. The middle ground still involves some of the people at the bottom of the piece and the complete left hand side, which is not being hit by light so it is shaded in decreasing value. The background is the complete illuminated space that affects the rest of the piece. The people in the background are much less detailed than the ones in the foreground. The tonal range is incredibly complex in this drawing. It varies from very light to very dark, depending on where an object/wall/person is positioned relative to the illumination source. The main vanishing point is in the background, center-bottom, of the drawing. Although this is the perspective vanishing point, I suspect there are many vanishing points throughout the painting due to the nature of the curves and height of the structure. There doesn’t seem to be much hatching, instead grey wash is used to represent shading. The light source seems to be produced by the cross, positioned on the lower right of the piece.