Apr 19, 2009 9:12 am US/Eastern
CBS 2 At The Met: Raphael To Renoir
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
With a rare 15th century drawing by Raphael as its centerpiece, this new exhibition at the Met is all owned by one man who lives in Geneva, Switzerland. A banker by trade, Jean Bonna is one of the world's top collectors of Old Master drawings. He began his collection only 22-years ago. Curator Carmen Bambach tells Dana Tyler that Bonna's choices are personal yet telling.
"Jean has a predilection for landscapes, he has a predilection for studies of the human figure particularly beautiful young and you will also see that he's interested in, natural history drawings, so he is not required to collect in an encyclopedic way where, where as a museum collection would depend on that."
From 1515, a red chalk drawing Raphael, based on a tapestry designed for Pope Leo X, the "Study of Soldiers in the Conversion of Saul," Bambach says, "For Rafael its almost as important what he puts on the paper as what of the paper he leaves blank. And so you see him using the paper in this extremely sensitive way. I think in many ways it builds on the animation of the composition. Remember these are secondary figures in the composition, but look at the care that he lavishes on making them seem alive as a rushing to witness the conversion of Saul, of the Saint falling of his horse. So, it is an extremely dynamic way of thinking."
The Bonna Collection covers 400 years of the history of drawing, exploring many continents and many techniques. The curator explains, "The crayon technique of three chalks. red chalk, black chalk and white chalk. This is a beautiful drawing from about 1740. He seems to have studied the figure from life. Its full of changes of idea throughout the drawing so its an extremely animated drawing after the life model."
And then Bonna shows his eclectic, his nature-loving side in his collection, with this work done in 1578 by German artist Hans Hoffmann, called " A Wild Boar Piglet. "What is really extraordinary, is that not only the description of the animal itself is very precise, that you can see that he has even depicted the shadows that the forms cast."
As for Bonna's love of landscapes, Bambach says the ray-don's bold use of color for a sailing trip in Bordeau captivated Bonna's imagination. Bambach notes, "As you look across the composition here you also see very different waves that the artist has. Sometimes he does in lines, sometimes he just presses ding ding ding into the, into this. So the idea of being able to see the artist thinking on paper; this is something that he is also the collector, Jean Bonna, is also extremely interested in. It's drawing with life!"
"Raphael to Renoir: Drawings from the Collection of Jean Bonna" is at the Met until April 26.
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