The Master of Paper

'The Master of Paper. Drawing Books from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries' offers a reflection on the use of drawing books as an essential teaching tool for learning to draw and their evolution in Europe, including Spain. Featuring more than 100 pieces, the exhibition offers a survey of these repertoires of prints based on the human figure which revolutionised the system of teaching drawing. Due to the facts that they're made of paper and they were constantly in use in artists’ studios, academies and private homes, few examples of these books have survived to the present day. You can appreciate pieces such as 'Treaty on the Passions of the Soul' by Charles Le Brun; drawings of faces that reflect anger, joy, laughter or tranquility; and those that the exhibition curator, José Manuel Matilla, has deemed as the inspiration for modern-day emoticons.