Artist Painting a Nude Woman: Allegory of Visual Perception
1598
ink
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
1598
ink
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
This engraving shows an artist at a desk drawing a nude woman on paper. Light falls from a window onto his tools—pencils, a compass, and a set of proportional dividers. The artist’s setup looks like a real studio of the late 1500s. Saenredam made this print to explore how sight turns into art. He uses cross-hatching—tiny parallel lines—to build shadows and depth on the page. The lines are so fine they almost disappear. Try looking up chiaroscuro next.
