One of the most important artistic developments of the Renaissance was the growth in drawing. Leonardo used drawing to develop his eye and hand, and as a tool to explore the world around him. Even when a drawing is a study for a particular project, it is often far removed from the work as executed - he would fill a page with sketches, 'brainstorming' the problem to stimulate new ideas. This is a typically spontaneous sheet of studies, presumably connected with a composition of the Madonna and Child, and showing the infant variously raising his hand in blessing, suckling, or putting his fingers in his mouth. The smaller studies to the right concentrate on the limbs of a healthy, chubby child; the Christ Child in Italian painting of the fifteenth century often reached grotesque levels of plumpness.