With quick, spidery lines in pen and ink, Vasari vivified Saint Paul’s heavenly vision of Christ on the road to Damascus. The artist’s approach to the biblical scene—particularly the close- cropped, horizontal format—differs notably from that of Lodovico Carracci, whose Conversion of Saint Paul appears elsewhere in the exhibition. This sketchwas a preparatory drawing for one of three frescoes that Vasari designed for a church ceiling vault in the central Italian town of Cortona. The paint stainson the right- hand side suggest that the drawing was used during the painting process.
Giorgio Vasari
Italian, 1511–1574
The conversion of Saint Paul, 1554
Pen and brown ink, and brush and brown wash, with splatters of gray, green, and pink paint, over black chalk, squared in black chalk
The Art Institute of Chicago, gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray; 2019.872
Gray Collection Trust, Art Institute of Chicago
Photography by Art Institute of Chicago Imaging Department
Austėja Mackelaitė: Ink stains and paint splotches, which are special and noticeable at the right side of the composition, are essential to understanding the function of this drawing in Vasari's workshop. Far from a precious sheet, this was a working drawing, which the artist made in preparation for a fresco with a conversion of St. Paul commissioned by the Jesuit church in Cortona. The paint stains indicate that Vasari might have used the sheet during the actual painting process. The drawing is squared in black chalk, which would have helped the artist transfer his composition to a large scale fresco. While the stains on Vasari's sheet are incidental, the splotches on Claes Oldenburg's drawing nearby are integral to the work. In this depiction of the Typewriter Eraser, one of the key visual subjects, which the artist explored over the course of his career Oldenburg's loose, gestural, truly virtuosic approach to watercolor transforms this humble everyday object into a lively and expressive form.