Few of us paint or sculpt, but all of us draw – from time to time, at least, and with varying degrees of skill: with a knife on a tablecloth, or a felt pen on an office whiteboard; during moments of distraction, when we fill the backs of envelopes with doodled flowers, or moments of desperation, when we are faced with communicating a visual concept for which words prove unhelpfully rigid or ambiguous. The universality of drawing tempts us to think of it as an authentic mode of human expression – a form of mark-making which, like a signature, leaves behind a unique, authoritative trace of its creator’s character and identity.

This exhibition of master drawings at Dulwich Picture Gallery, all of which are taken from the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, reinforces this beguiling (but increasingly disputed) view. Each of the 100 drawings on display has been chosen as an idiosyncratic example of the work of a different artist. If this selection policy tends to overemphasise the autonomy of, in particular, the figures from the early modern period represented here (an era when ‘new’ drawings were often adapted from pre-existing imagery), it also gives the curators a free hand to showcase some of the best individual works from the Ontario collection – the Satyrs and Satyresses in a Landscape by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, with its zigzagging pen lines and deft use of virgin paper to produce highlights, is worth the trip to Dulwich on its own.

Further interest is generated by the way in which several artists have been wittily juxtaposed. In the room devoted to British drawing, the sinewy back and buttocks of a standing nude by Henry Fuseli face Thomas Kerrich’s ultra-restrained depiction of William Heath M.A., a quietly riveting clerical portrait composed entirely in tones of grey and rose. The total effect of this intriguing exhibition is that of an animated conversation between forceful personalities.

Until Jan 17

THOMAS BALFE