Lithograph

Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Week 15, Monday

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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. “

Pencil drawing by Willie Jones Jr.
Lithograph by Ben Shahn
Engraving from the US Treasury

A doubleheader, Brooklyn Bridge Week, Day 7 (Friday)

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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.

“Gates of the City” (Etching, 1922) and “Manhattan Gateway” (Lithograph, 1948)

“High arches” (No, not feet!), Wengenroth, Brooklyn Bridge Week, day 5 (Wednesday)

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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.

High Arches (Lithograph, 1960)

Stow Wengenroth aGAIN? Brooklyn Bridge Week, Day 3 (Monday)

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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.

Brooklyn Bridge (Lithograph, 1950)

Brooklyn in the Snow: Week 14, Saturday

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Here’s another Wengenroth print I’ve been saving to share on the right occasion, not knowing exactly what the right occasion would be. It’s another snow scene, so I wanted to share it on a snowy day. Check! But even better…it’s the Brooklyn Bridge in the snow….and we happen to be staying in Brooklyn, just 2 miles from the Brooklyn Bridge. Check check!

Wengenroth was born and raised in Brooklyn. Different sources have given me different stories for where he lived his adult life. One version said he lived in Brooklyn till a few years before he died.

The print is a fairly close view of a man bundled up for the weather , walking head down across the bridge. Because this is a closer view than most of his pictures, his attention to detail in textures is even more apparent. Look at the bridge cables, especially the one in the right foreground. Look at the snow on the bridge cables and on the gas streetlamp, and of course the bricks of the bridge arches. Look at the textured rather than individual bridge suspension cables on right and left in the background of the print. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I do!

Brooklyn Bridge in Winter (Lithograph, 1959)

Charming parody/satire: Tuesday

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You may remember several posts about Grandville, a French artist of the early nineteenth century, who published several collections of caricatures satirizing the bourgeoisie. These were lithographs printed in black and white, and hand colored after printing, from a collection called Les Metamorphoses du Jour (The Transformations of the Day). Some of them require some context, or the availability of the text, and better French than I possess, but some are interpretable off the bat. Today’s is pretty straightforward and very cute/fun.

I assume the choice of the animal head for the teacher was very deliberate and a very broad joke. Enjoy!

Les metamorphoses du jour (Lithograph, hand colored, 1829)

Evening in Gloucester Harbor: week 12, day 7 (Friday)

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As always, the stellar lithographer Stow Wengenroth brings happiness to my heart. This is one of my favorite prints of his, which I’ve been saving, and I think New Year’s Eve and the end of my 12th week of sharing a print a day is a fitting occasion to share this one.

If you’re curious about how Gloucester Harbor sits in relation to the rest of Cape Ann and the mainland, here’s a nice detailed map (from the late 19th century).

This one is pretty uncomplicated. Gorgeous pic, no back story that I was able to find (and nothing in the picture to suggest there should be.)

Gloucester Evening (Lithograph, 1976)

Crawling in and out of reality: week 12, day 3 (Monday)

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Escher the printmaker was best known for his interesting perspectives, mathematical approach to art, and the impossible scenes he portrayed. I have committed to showing prints that are visually pleasing rather than primarily of intellectual interest. Thus far, I have stayed away from the kind of work for which he is famous. There are some of his characteristic pieces that are also visually pleasing. Today’s print is one that I find delightful visually.

Escher became friendly with mathematician Bruno Ernst. After spending a lot of time with Escher, Ernst developed a mathematical classification for Escher’s prints, which I will share here for fun.

  1. Regular spatial figures
  2. Regular division of the plane
  3. Spirals
  4. Mobius strips
  5. Perspective
  6. Metamorphoses and cycles
  7. Approaches to infinity
  8. The conflict between depicting someting on a place, and the three-dimensional reality which is depicted
  9. The penetration of more worlds
  10. Spatial anomalies (impossible figures)
  11. Relativities

These categories make sense if you’ve seen a lot of Escher’s work. For those who haven’t and are interested, many of his works can be viewed online at the Escher Foundation’s Gallery. His complete graphic works are published in a book which is out of print, but used copies of which can be found at reasonable prices.

Today’s print, Reptiles, falls into categories 2 and 6 (Regular division of the plane, and Metamorphoses and cycles.) I hope you find it as pleasing as I do.

Reptiles (Lithograph, 1943)

Poetry and print–a common convergence: week 11, day 7 (Friday)

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I don’t think I’m particularly looking for it, but I have come cross a few places where poetry and graphic art intersect, either inspiring the other . It popped up again today. I was given a copy of a Jewish legend from the Zohar (one of the foundational texts of Jewish mysticism) called The Alphabet of Creation, adapted and illustrated with prints by the Lithuanian-American-Jewish artist Ben Shahn. My mom is a big fan of Shahn, but aside from one print hanging on the wall of our living room, I wasn’t really familiar with this artist. With the Alphabet of Creation in hand, I decided to explore Shahn’s print art. Some I liked, some I didn’t, but I discovered that Shahn had a particular fascination with the 19th/20th century Austrian poet-novelist Rainer Maria Rilke. I don’t know RIlke’s work well, but a particular quotation I had long ago encountered gave him a special lustre in my memory. (From his Letters to a Young Poet: “For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.”)

Shahn actually created a series of 24 lithographs (The Rilke Portfolio) inspired by a single long paragraph in Rilke’s only novel, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. The passage is beautiful, and the lithographs are interesting and beautiful riffs on the passage. Today’s print, however, is not one of those, but rather another Rilke-associated print called Birds Over the City. This print is “assembled” from 3 motifs found in the Rilke Portfolio: several doves together, shown above a representation of a city, with a minimalist figure of Rilke’s face superimposed. Doves are often a symbol of love. Cities can be places to meet people, but when unpartnered, can feel very lonely. Love and loneliness are important themes in Rilke’s writing. (The portion of the print which is just Rilke’s face and the doves was also used in a poster Shahn created for a gallery called Atelier Mourlot.)

Symbolism aside, I find this picture visually appealing–harmonious, even. Love predominates over possible loneliness in the feel. How does it grab you?

Birds Over The City (Lithograph, 1968) with comparison images by the same artist

Bird, boat and boulders: week 11, day 5 (Wednesday)

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Name that artist! For those of you who are regular viewers, one glance at the picture will likely tell you who the printmaker is. We’ve looked at his work before, but I don’t think we’ve ever seen sailboats, birds only once, and rocks several times but not together with birds.

The look of the boats and the fact that there are two shown makes me think perhaps this is a race. I feel the motion of the bird and of the boats, and of course the texture of the rocks is marvelous.

SPACE

INTENTIONALLY

LEFT BLANK to avoid the spoiler

Who is it? Yes, it’s Stow Wengenroth. I could stare at his prints for hours…

Going home (Lithograph, 1972)

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