Ben's Passion for Prints and Miscellaneous Musings on Art
Prints and other visual art
Wengenroth’s prints are mostly the rustic New England scenes we have been looking at and learning to love over the past few months. However, Wengenroth was born and lived in Brooklyn most of his life, traveling extensively in New England but not living there till the last few years of his life. We looked at a NYC scene around 5 weeks ago which lots of people seemed to enjoy.
Today’s NY scene feels seasonally appropriate–no snow on the ground yet, but bare trees.
I’ve been showing Wengenroth prints pretty much every week since the beginning, and I’ve referred to his typical New England Scenes like lighthouses, but I just realized I’d never shown one of his prints of a lighthouse. There are so many to choose from, it’s a bit daunting. I was looking at some of his lithographs just as the sun was going down, so today’s print caught my eye.
As you may remember, Grandville was a 19th century French artist who published a lot of prints poking fun a the Parisian middle class by putting animal heads on the figures of human bodies. This allowed him to satirize without being close enough to be accused of libel. He published a book full of these called Les Metamorphoses du Jour The prints are black-and-white lithographs which were hand-colored after printing in the first edition; it was so popular that there were several subsequent editions which were illustrated with woodcut reproductions by secondary artists.
As I was scanning through the prints included in Les Metamorphoses du Jour, this one jumped out at me and made me laugh. I don’t know the terms in French, but in English I think this might qualify as a pun on “fishwives” (wives or mothers of fishermen, stereotypically loud and given to strong language). Enjoy!
The print artists I most enjoy (Martin Lewis, Stow Wengenroth) create incredibly detailed pictures–with every line carefully drawn on the plate, whether etched, engraved or “lithographed”. I recently came across a printmaker whose approach is Impressionist–dabs and splotches in many cases as opposed to precise lines. Even when lines are used, they are often incomplete, suggesting rather than demonstrating the structure. I don’t think I enjoy this style as much as Wengenroth and Lewis’s technique but I do like it.
Maurice de Vlaminck (1875-1958) was a French artist best known as a painter and one of the creators of Fauvism. As a painter, his style definitely included much of what we think of as Impressionist, and I guess I would say the same about this print style. He favored lithography, though he also did etching and engraving. The print I’ve selected for today portrays a street in a small French village and the surrounding countryside.
I am incredibly grateful for having discovered this passion for art. Of all the artists whose work I enjoy (and the list keeps growing, a little overwhelmingly!), none evokes that gratitude more than Stow Wengenroth. Born and raised in Brooklyn, living in Long Island for many years, he moved to Rockport (one of the most beautiful places I know) 4 years before his death in 1978. Today’s print, Moonlight, shows two boats grounded at nighttime low tide in the harbor at Rockport. Look at the quality of the moonlight–it’s a glow! Look at the shadow cast by the boat in the foreground. Simple and so beautiful!
Sunday. The Christian Sabbath. Charles White was an African-American artist (prints, paintings, mixed media, 1918-1979) who was good friends with well-known African-American poet Margaret Walker. Walker published this beautiful, heart-wrenching, dignified, sad yet fiercely hopeful and determined poem in 1949. (see below) White created this print 10 years later, inspired by the poem. It feels to me a brilliant reflection of the poem, and both feel inspiring.
We have been believers believing in the black gods of an
old land, believing in the secrets of the seeress and the
magic of the charmers and the power of the devil's evil
ones.
And in the white gods of a new land we have been believers
believing in the mercy of the masters and the beauty of
our brothers, believing in the conjure of the humble
and the faithful and the pure.
Neither the slavers' whip nor the lynchers' rope nor the
bayonet could kill our black belief. In our hunger we
beheld the welcome table and in our nakedness the
glory of a long white robe. We have been believers in
the new Jerusalem.
We have been believers feeding greedy grinning gods, like a
Moloch demanding our sons and our daughters our
strength and our wills and our spirits of pain. We have
been believers, silent and stolid and stubborn and
strong.
We have been believers yielding substance for the world.
With our hands have we fed a people and out of our
strength have they wrung the necessities of a nation.
Our song has filled the twilight and our hope has
heralded the dawn.
Now we stand ready for the touch of one fiery iron, for the
cleansing breath of many molten truths, that the eyes
of the blind may see and the ears of the deaf may hear
and the tongues of the people be filled with living fire.
Where are our gods that they leave us asleep? Surely the
priests and the preachers and the powers will hear.
Surely now that our hands are empty and our hearts too
full to pray they will understand. Surely the sires of
the people will send us a sign.
We have been believers believing in our burdens and our
demigods too long. Now the needy no longer weep and
pray; the longsuffering arise, and our fists bleed
against the bars with a strange insistency.
Wow, that guy was amazing. Today’s print is not just beautiful; it’s entitled Serenity, which I felt in need of, and gazing at this print did help. Does it do anything for you?
While perusing prints online and in books looking for inspiration for today’s print, I was struck by a contrast between two pictures of maternal figures male children by two different African-American artists. I’m sharing this pair of prints today.
Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012) was a visual artist best known for her prints, although later in life she turned to sculpture as well. She was married first to another African-American print artist (Charles White, whose work I will feature one of these days). She and her husband were both awarded a prestigious fellowship to study in Mexico, where she remained after divorcing White, because she found American art trending towards the abstract, whereas her avowed reason for creating was to transmit social messages. Most of her work was devoted to describing and commenting on the Black American experience, especially the experience of Black women. She had a distinguished career as an artist in Mexico, becoming the first female art professor at a national art school.
I have shown prints by John Biggers twice before, first a charming print of a young girl, and then a print of two Black men learning to read. Notably, he was awarded a UNESCO fellowship in the 1950s to visit Africa to learn about African culture and artistic tradition. He was profoundly influenced by this first trip (to Ghana) and several subsequent trips to Africa. He was impressed by the matriarchal nature of Ghanaian society, finding both similarities and differences to the matriarchal character of African-American culture.
On his first trip to Ghana, Biggers drew a picture of his host, art professor Patrick Hulede, together with Hulede’s mother.
Catlett, in 1979, created a print of a maternal figure and a child. It’s not clear if this is mother or grandmother, but the style of the hat suggests an older woman to me..
Two pictures, both of a maternal figure and child: not strictly comparable, as one is adult mother and son, the other likely grandmother and young grandson, and yet I was struck by a comparison and contrast. When I look at the Catlett print, I see on the grandmother’s face weariness, uncertainty and perhaps fear in both her and the child, and what I might characterize as a contracted tone.
In contrast, what I feel in the Biggers drawing is openness, pride, and an expansive tone. Perhaps I’m reasoning backwards from my knowledge of history, but this fits with the ongoing oppression of American Blacks versus (in some parts of Africa which avoided colonial rule) a long-standing tradition of dignified self-government. Am I alone in this? I’d love to hear your reactions.
More and more, I think Stow Wengeroth is my favorite print artist. I haven’t found one of his prints yet that I don’t like, and most I love. He is best known for New England scenes, which comprise the bulk of his oeuvre, but he has a number of striking New York scenes as well, which remind me of Martin Lewis. (In fact, I first learned of Wengenroth, early in my print enthusiasm, when trying to track down a Martin Lewis print I really liked, only to discover it was mislabeled and was actually by Wengenroth. This is today’s print.) Wengenroth was born in Brooklyn, trained in New York, and lived in New York City on and off over most of his lifetime.
Today’s print is of a nocturnal street scene with city skyline in the background, and like all of his work, it is remarkably detailed and evocative. This print takes my breath away as much as any of his classical New England lighthouse scenes. When I look at this scene, I hear Earle Hagen’s Harlem Nocturne in my head–not sure if the scene itself evokes that resonance, or merely the name, or perhaps a combination of the two. (Tangential trivia: Hagen wrote the song as a tribute to Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges, for the Ray Noble Orchestra. The link is to the original recording by Noble’s orchestra. I didn’t recognize Hagen’s name, but was fascinated to discover he wrote numerous TV theme songs, including two of my all-time faves–the Andy Griffith Show and the Dick van Dyke Show.)
A couple of weeks back, I posted a print by Grandville–a lithograph, hand colored after printing, of a satire on the bourgeois of France in the early 19th century. This was one of a large series he did of human figures with the heads of animals, many of which are charming, some of which are grotesque. I think there are enough interesting ones to continue post them here from time to time.
Today’s print might be compared to Peter Rabbit, with Farmer McGregor promoted to Colonel. . Enjoy!
