Many people are familiar with the work of MC Escher, who created fantastic (as in fantasy) pictures including impossible objects, tessellations, reflections, Mobius strips, and more. Many of these are of intellectual interest, but some are artistically interesting or attractive as well. I did not realize till recently that Escher’s works were not drawings but prints! He worked with several print media, but lithographs were the most common, with woodcuts second. In the early part of his career, he did fairly prosaic prints of buildings, places and people. It was starting in his 30s that the more interesting stuff began to emerge.
I plan on sharing some of Escher’s more visually interesting and attractive works here, starting today with a mezzotint of a dewdrop on a leaf.
I’ve already established that I tend to enjoy monochrome (esp black and white) prints more than color, in general. I’m also discovering that many of the printmakers I like are from and/or do a lot of scenes of New York City. Having lived in the city myself for 7 years, I really enjoy these. Am I discovering so many of them because NYC has a lively arts scene and therefore lots of printmakers gravitate there? Is it a popular subject because these prints sell well? Many of the NYC prints that have caught my eye are really pretty pictures, but don’t grab me in my gut. It’s hard to articulate, but it feels like I’m getting some sense of artistic depth. I’m not necessarily talking about meaning here–I’m just talking about a different kind of artistic value, which is likely very personal.
Today, I looked at the works of five modern or contemporary NYC print artists, and four of them produced very attractive pieces which pleased my eye but didn’t produce a visceral reaction. Karen Whitman is the fifth. I can’t say her pieces feel profoundly meaningful per se, but they do evoke a much deeper feeling than the other four artists. Whitman is still alive and working, has worked as a circus performer, and creates music as well as visual art. Her medium is relief block prints, both linocuts (as in this piece) and woodcuts. Her works are modestly priced as these things go, and I encourage you to look at more of her work
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!
I wrote a long post a couple of weeks ago about the artist Antonio Frasconi, with a print that I didn’t really love but featured because I love his social justice thrust. Today, I want to share another print by the same artist, which I do love both for its visual appeal and for its subject. It’s a woodcut portrait of Walt Whitman, who died years before Frasconi was born, but whom the young Uruguayan read passionately. The depth of Frasconi’s affinity for Whitman can be judged by the fact that he made at least 8 separate portrait prints of Whitman that I can locate, most of them included in a book of Whitman’s writings Frasconi assembled titled A Whitman Portrait (1960). I haven’t read a lot of Whitman, but I have been struck deeply by what I have read, in particular this passage from Leaves of Grass, his signature work.
This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem….
Here’s the print of Whitman that I like best, which is from the page opposite the title page of the book:
As with many of the artists, I stumbled across a print created by Margaret Burroughs (1915-2010), and thus started to learn about her life Cliche though it is, she was an incredible example of a Renaissance woman. She was a painter, sculptor, poet, printmaker and perhaps most important community organizer and fierce advocate for African American people. She was born in the rural South, but her family moved to Chicago when she was a child, and she lived there for more of her life. She was a gifted artist, being noticed by teachers in her childhood and being encouraged and nurtured. She continually created, never stopping. In addition to her many paintings, sculptures and prints, she authored more than 10 books, mostly poetry and children’s books, and edited several anthologies. She established a museum of African America History and Art (now the DuSable Museum of African American History) and a community art center (the South Side Community Art Center). She was recognized with many awards later in life.
I wrote in a previous post about representation and how important it is. Many African-American artists have worked hard to provide it, and this was one of Burroughs’ passions. In addition to portraying everyday scenes with dark-skinned people, she created some visual art showing strikingly beautiful images of dark-skinned people in dramatic settings. Today’s print is called Black Venus, and is loosely based on Botticelli’s well-known Birth of Venus (humorously referred to by some as Venus on the Half-Shell). There was an intermediate artwork which is important to note. Thomas Stothard’s Voyage of the Sable Venus (see below), created around 1800, replaces Botticelli’s light-skinned Venus with a black one who is clearly traveling across the water in a seashell vessel. Some have suggested that this represents the voyage of black people from Africa to slavery in America, and using the symbol of Venus is an allusion to the rape of enslaved black women. Looking at Stothard’s print, it’s easy to imagine the figure of Triton or Poseidon gazing at Venus in a lecherous and commanding way, whereas in Burrough’s version that figure appears to be looking at Venus with awe or admiration. Stothard’s Venus looks unsure of herself, whereas Burrough’s version presents a calm beauty with no apparent lack of confidence. It’s not clear if Burroughs was aware of Stothard’s piece..
I applaud Burroughs for wanting to represent dark-skinned people in historical or fictional contexts as well. There are many speculations that Jesus, for example, was dark-skinned for all that European artists always represent him as white. Who knows what color skin the mythic gods of Greece had? I find many of Burrough’s prints pleasing and interesting and will undoubtedly show more of them in the future.
Margaret Taylor Burroughs’ Black Venus
Grainger after Stothard’s Voyage of the Sable Venus from Angola to the West Indies
Richard Bosman was the first printmaker I featured when I started this endeavor a month or so ago. He does woodcuts, screenprints and monoprints as well as paintings. He uses bold colors but most of his prints feature a limited palette, often limited to variations of a single color. I chose today’s print of a waterfall as on our vacation this summer we spent time in upstate New York looking at several gorgeous waterfalls. This one is entitled Buttermilk Falls, but there are numerous falls with that name, so I’m not sure which one it is. We don’t need to know that in order to enjoy it, of course.
Martin Lewis is the printmaker I stumbled upon that ignited this new enthusiasm. He was a virtuoso, exploring a number of printmaking techniques and many variations of them and producing an incredible variety of textures and effects thereby. He never touched color in printmaking, though he did to some extent in painting. By today’s standards, that means that his prints (all black and white) evoke a certain feel, a film noir kind of allusion. He was masterful at the use of light and dark. Many of his best works were set at night, especially in Manhattan, and evoke the feel of the night, and the city at night in a powerful fashion. His early prints feel somewhat more pedestrian than his later work. He took up painting (especially watercolor) in the 1920s, and it seems to have had positive effects on his printmaking, which became much more textured and nuanced. Is it an accident that it was in this period that he started to do more night scenes?
Today’s print is set in a somewhat suburban feeling location–perhaps one of the outer boroughs, or Connecticut. It is a lithograph. This was a technique he utilized much less than etching. In characteristic Lewis style, he wasn’t content with plain old lithography. He added texture to this print by using a metal stylus to scratch some fine white lines into the pattern laid down with the wax lithograph “crayon” before printing. Like most of the prints I love, this one pulls me in, makes me feel like I am part of the scene. Behold, “American Nocturne” (1937).
Given that it’s been a rainy day here, I thought a print of a rainy day would be appropriate. The Japanese ukiyo-e artists depicted weather a lot–wind, rain, snow–with sudden downpours an especially common feature. As in haiku, nature and the natural environment is very important. This print, Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi bridge and Atake, by Hiroshige, was created in 1857, as part of the famous series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. (Edo was the older name for the city of Tokyo.) Bridges were very common in Hiroshige’s prints. This particular print is one of the better known of Hiroshige’s works, and was copied in oil paints by Van Gogh (See below). I love this print like so many of the ukiyo-e scenes, because it’s very evocative–I feel like I can be in the picture.
Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake, by Hiroshige
John Taylor Arms, as you may remember, was a prolific etcher from the first half of the 20th century who was widely recognized for his talent in his time. Most of his prints are of places, which happens to be the category I like best. Here’s an absolutely lovely one, which is not profound but just plain beautiful. You have to look twice to realize it’s not a photo.
