The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art has a treat in store for returning Auburn students and art lovers in the community.
The Old Master Drawings Exhibit, on loan from the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Florida, is a collection of 42 works on early examples of the paper medium.
"As you can see, they're wonderful works, and I think that it's something that most people in our community would enjoy," said Andy Tennant, assistant director of The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art.
Seeing the complete exhibit for the first time, Tennant was impressed with the quality of the works.
"I know that some people say that oftentimes we have more modern art, but this is some of the more classical art that people would expect to find in a museum," Tennant said.
The drawings were what one would expect to see in a textbook. Examples of styles throughout the Renaissance were dominant in the collection with crisp, precise detail.
"The old masters were the definition, they were masters of what they did and they really brought art into the Renaissance approach of how people really looked," Tennant said.
Tenant said the collection signaled a movement away from the representational style of medieval art, with its stiff figures.
"These master works show the shadows and the details of the figure," Tennant said.
Leaning closely into "Saint James the Elder," a piece from Flemish artist Pieter Claesz Soutman, Tennant traced the saint's outline, inches from the glass.
"You can see the veins in their hands," Tennant said.
In scenes of love, violence and celebration, the artists on display epitomized the concept of high art.
"They were experimenting with new media, things like charcoal for sketches and gouache, the white you see in it. They were using a variety of media, and their works show all of that," Tennant said.
Many of the drawings were experimental sketches, which were utilized by architects during the period. The sketches allowed designers to visualize the aesthetics of a structure while also helping to determine if a design would be practical in its execution, according to information provided by the museum.
Tennant pointed out that although the 42 works were all created on paper, there were a number of different media that the artists utilized.
Red and black chalk, as well as pen and charcoal, were all used in various works throughout the collection.
"I think people would be interested in seeing the various media that the works were done in," Tennant said.
Tennant was happy to have the collection at the museum and said it brought an element of world-famous museums to Auburn.
"Seeing this kind of art is what you might expect to see in a museum most of the time, when you think of large museums such as the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art," Tennant said.
Along with the new exhibit, the museum cafe opened for business this fall.
"On Thursdays, we have a musical group, and they play for about an hour during lunch time," Tennant said.
Cafe cook Brian McLeod said he anticipated brisk business with the new exhibit.
"I've been here for a little over a year now, and I've noticed that business is pretty constant when a new exhibition opens up and people read about it."
Jessica Thomas, cafe server, agreed.
"Thursday is normally very busy. Today we ran out of everything we could run out of."
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