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Sanford Robinson Gifford (American, 1823–1880). Santa Catarina, from a sketchbook of Italian scenery, 1868. Graphite on paper, 5 x 9 in. (12.7 x 22.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Jennie Brownscombe, 17.141
Renowned as one of the leading painters of the Hudson River School of landscape artists, Sanford Gifford was also a talented draftsman, as evidenced by this drawing of Santa Catarina, a centuries-old church built into the cliffs on the eastern shore of Lake Maggiore in northern Italy. He fully exploited the pencil medium, using the point to outline the building's dramatic profile and the surrounding topography, and then making hatchings and rubbings to create the timeworn surfaces of the walls.
This image appears in a sketchbook that Gifford carried with him during his 1868–69 tour of Italy. Such on-the-spot sketches from his travels played a vital role in Gifford's artistic process, serving as mnemonic records of what he saw and compositional experiments for subsequent oil sketches and exhibition pictures. Santa Catarina is one of many impressive examples of nineteenth-century landscape drawings by artists of the Hudson River, American Pre-Raphaelite, and Barbizon Schools in the Museum's collections.
Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum