Ben's Passion for Prints and Miscellaneous Musings on Art
Prints and other visual art
Every time I hear any bit of A Rhapsody in Blue, George Gershwin’s magnum opus, I just have to stop and listen. It’s magical. And while I didn’t grow up with it, the segment set to it from the 2000 remake of Fantasia, feels very on target too. So here it is–Gershwin, as rendered by Al Hirschfeld. There was a gala done of his music in 1980 in NJ, for which Hirschfeld drew a cover for the program, with Sarah Vaughn and Thomas Michalak both participating.
Bridges do seem to be particularly print-o-genic, judging by the number of prints that I have found of bridges. Of course, the Brooklyn Bridge is particularly iconic–and there are a lot more excellent pictures of it than of most of the other NY city bridges (which is why I picked it for the week-long series) . Some of that reflects its age, of course–it’s the oldest of the East River crossings and one of the oldest in NYC that’s still in use.
When flipping through images from Hokusai’s famous series The 36 Views of Mount Fuji, my eye was caught by the print Sunset across the Ryogoku Bridge from the bank of the Sumida River at Onmayagashi. With this print, as with many others, there were many editions, printed from reproduced blocks, with different inks, over decades. Not surprisingly, the colors vary tremendously. I looked at a number of editions of this print, and finally honed in on one that seemed to capture all the colors well. Almost all of the them had rich blues and greens, but the orange-pink of the sunset was barely visible in most. (Perhaps that color faded more quickly than the other colors?)
When I started reading about the Ryogoku bridge, there were many references and numerous pictures spanning the centuries. It is one of many bridges in Tokyo, but it dates back to the 17th century. I think it qualifies as a reasonable analog to the Brooklyn Bridge. I am not proposing to do a week of prints of the Ryogoku Bridge (though there are more than enough to do months!), but in addition to the one print that I was planning to share, I will include a few others.
In the original Hokusai Sunset print, I love the texture of the water aft of the boat, as well as how the sunset diffuses out behind the bridge, the mountain and the distant land.
If you have clicked through to the WordPress blog, then you can click on any of the images and get a magnified gallery with captions, which allows you to scroll through the images one by one, and you can zoom in on any of them as you would on any image on a web page.
How could I not commemorate this day with an image of MLK? Not surprisingly, there are numerous photographs of MLK, some paintings and drawings and a very few prints. After looking at numerous paintings, drawings and the handful of prints, I’ve chosen 3 images to present.
The first is a pencil drawing that I just love, by an artist named Willie Jones Jr, otherwise famous for paintings and drawings of military aircraft. The second is a lithograph by Ben Shahn printed together with a King quotation. The third is an engraving from the US Treasury Bureau of Engraving and Printing (yes, the people who design and make our paper money!)
Before presenting the images, I will share a less commonly found quotation from MLK which I like.
“If you can’t fly, then run
If you can’t run, then walk
If you can’t walk, then crawl.
But whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward. “
Today’s print is a visually striking piece with an interesting backstory. This is not one of Escher’s characteristic “crazy” pieces, but what might be called a pretty traditional kind of picture, albeit one that grabs my gut. Escher was inspired to write it by a piano prelude by Debussy. Debussy’s piece was, in turn, inspired by an ancient Breton myth called the Legend of Ys, about a sunken city or church that re-emerges above the water periodically. Of course, as with most ancient stories, there are numerous versions and variations.
The basic framework of the story seems to first be found in the sixteenth century, some elements can be found centuries earlier. The essential seems to be that the city was build on land reclaimed from the sea which could be flooded at high tide, so it was protected by dikes. The king’s daughter steals his keys, probably to admit a lover, and mistakenly opens the floodgates at high tide, allowing the city to be inundated, killing almost all of the inhabitants. Versions differ as to whether it was the palace/castle that was inundated, or the whole city, and in some later versions, it seems it was a church/cathedral, which was clearly what Debussy based his version on. The legened suggests that when the water is very clear, the city/palace/catherdral rises above the water transiently, and priests chanting and bells ringing can be heard.
Debussy’s prelude is very lovely, and very typical of his work. Some of the motifs definitely suggest church bells and priestly chanting. Escher’s print clearly hews to the cathedral version, and is very evocative.
The lighthouse thing was not a deliberate choice. I often look for a picture that reflects something that feels concordant with the moment I’m in, weather being one of the easiest ones. There are a lot of beautiful snow scenes, of course. I’m not a huge fan of snow as a practical thing, but it looks beautiful. It is winter, but so far we haven’t had a lot of snow.
After a week of mostly black and white prints, I wanted something colorful, so I turned back to William Hays, whom you may remember as a Vermont painter turned printmaker to increase accessibility of his works. This piece is set in winter and has some snow, but it’s not primarily a snow scene, and it is in fact a lighthouse scene though I wasn’t specifically looking for one. The color scheme in this print is somewhat muted compared to many of his others–reminds me a bit of Andy Lovell.
Closing out Brooklyn Bridge Week, I had two prints left by different artists (as well as a bunch of others that were rejected early on), and I just couldn’t make up my mind. So you get a bonus image today. As we started it with Stow Wengenroth, his last Brooklyn Bridge print will be one of the two. (Don’t worry, I’ll take a break from Wengenroth for a while now, after posting 4 of his prints in the past week!) The other is a second print of the bridge by John Taylor Arms (Remember “Cobwebs”?)
Compare today’s “Gates of the City” by Arms to Wengenroth’s “Brooklyn Bridge” Very much the same view, same angle, both beautiful textured pictures, yet quite different. Arms zooms in on the cables as seen through the arches close up, and his brick texture is detailed yet different from Wengenroth’s.
Wengenroth’s today is a night view called “Manhattan Gateway”. The fog and the time of day give the picture such a different feel. Look at the diffuse aura of the gas streetlamps, and the lights of the city in the background–even as reflected on the water of the East River. The texture of the wrought iron fence is highlighted here.
And thus we say farewell to Brooklyn Bridge Week! Back to a more varied “diet” starting on Saturday.
Even if I didn’t like the print, I’d be tempted to include one with this title. This is the first time this artist’s work will be seen on this blog. Jean Michel Mathieux-Marie (such a quintessentially French name) was born in 1947, and initially trained as an architect at the École Nationale Supérieure Des Beaux-Arts [National School of Fine Arts, reputed to be the best art school in France. As an aside, the Beaux-Arts (as it is called) was formed by the merger in 1793 of the Royal Academy of Architecture (founded 1671) and the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture (founded 1648).] Within two years of graduating, he started learning drypoint engraving, which remains his preferred technique. Typical drypoint engraving (e.g. Martin Lewis) is done with a metal stylus on a soft copper plate. (Nowadays, apparently dental tools are among the more popular implements used.) Mathieux-Marie uses a diamond-tipped tool to engrave on a hard steel plate, which is unusual. It’s tough to find information on less well known contemporary artists like this, so this is all I know.
You may remember that drypoint is essentially a form of engraving using a fine needle or stylus, as opposed to traditional engraving, done with a broader gouge-like tool called a burin. Drypoint is much closer to drawing, which makes it especially attractive to artists who want to dabble in printmaking, and haven’t devoted considerable time to learning to use the burin.
I love this picture because of the angle from which the bridge is portrayed. Most pictures we’ve seen have been views along the bridge from on it. A couple have been side views. This is the only I’ve seen so far from below on the side. It has all of the texture of the Wengenroth prints we’ve looked at, plus the bottom surface of the bridge deck. In addition, we get to see the lower portion of the main towers. And don’t forget the texture of the clouds and the sky.
The Amazing Stow Wengenroth. This print of the Brooklyn Bridge is from very much the same angle as the first of this week, “Brooklyn Bridge in Winter”, though on a sunny day, without any snow in sight. The textures are again remarkable: the cables, the brick of the towers, the pattern of the wires in the left background (which reminds me of yesterday’s print by JT Arms, “Cobwebs”), the tall buildings seen through the left hand arch, partially through the web of cables on the left. The shadows of the cables falling on the wooden decking are exquisite. The subtle and not so subtle variations are kind of amazing.
John Taylor Arms was recognized in his own time as a master etcher. Here’s one of his two prints of the Brooklyn Bridge–this one is quite different from those we’ve already looked at, but also beautiful. The two Wengenroth prints we’ve looked at of the bridge are both looking along the bridge from on it, whereas the Bosman and this are from the side; the Bosman was a night view, and this is a day view.
I have a lot of Brooklyn Bridge prints to choose from, but Wengenroth takes the cake–so much so, that I’m going to risk us possibly overdosing on him this week. Today, we’ll look at a print from 1950 which shows the symmetry of the arches, framing some tall Manhattan buildings. Those buildings are seen through a latticework formed by the suspension cables on both sides. The sky is cloudy, producing shadows on the bridge as well as a dramatic view behind the main towers of the bridge. Again, the textures are exquisite: the wooden decking and fencing on the right; the rivets in the steel beam on the left; and just as in the Brooklyn Bridge in Winter print from Saturday, the cables in the foreground and the bricks of the main towers.
