“Master, Pupil, Follower: 16th- to 18th-Century Italian Works on Paper,” on display at Georgia Museum of Art through March 8. Drawing was at the core of Renaissance art and from the 16th century on Italian artists focused on drawing just as much if not more so than painting. Giorgio Vasari, an influential Italian painter, architect and historian, regarded disegno (which means “drawing” or “design”) as the foundation of visual art.

Disegno was considered the basis of an artist’s training and an essential tool for capturing nature and the beauty of life. Drawing was at the core of all workshop practices and teaching academies, used to develop an artist’s skill through the diligent copying of antiquities and masters’ works. Drawing and printmaking also became the most inventive forms of expression and experimentation.