"Thirty-one of these rare drawings [of Palladio's], on loan from the RIBA, are on display in this country for the first time at New York's Morgan Library & Museum in 'Palladio and His Legacy: A Transatlantic Journey.' The exhibition traces the course of the Anglo-Palladianism inspired by the books and drawings that swept Britain in the 18th century and quickly crossed the ocean to the U.S., to be adopted immediately by a young country seeking an appropriate national identity."
Seeing the original ink-and-wash drawings made almost 500 years ago, with Palladio's handwritten notes, often done on the site, erases the centuries; they create a miraculous fusion of the distant past and immediate present, a kind of aesthetic time warp that brings the man and his moment wonderfully alive. The hand of the artist and the ink on the page connect instantly with the eye, mind and heart of the viewer. There is an intimacy, a sense of the architect's presence that no reproduction can achieve.
An education in the guise of an exhibition review. (And from Ada Louise Huxtable, no less; a woman who received a shout-out on Mad Men last season. How weird that must have been for her!) I love drawings--I really, really do. I was reminded just how much when I saw Picasso's exhibition at the Met a few weeks ago.
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