MASTER'S THESIS M-1840

PINNELL, Ruth Sargeant DEVELOPMENT OF THE WHITE OF TIE PAPER AS AN ACTIVE ELEM ENT IN PRTNTMAKING.

The American U niversity , M .F .A ., 1969 Fine Arts

University Microfilms, Inc., A nn Arbor, Michigan

DEVELOPMENT OF THE WHITE OF THE PAPER AS AN ACTIVE ELEMENT IN PRINTMAKING

by

Ruth Sargeant Pinnell

Submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of The American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirement for the Degree

of

Master of Fine Arts

Fine Arts

Signatures of G-qmmitte^':

Chairman : | (yff L\

Dean of the College

D a t e ; J ^ ^ Date: S'

1968AMERICAN UNIVERS, i r

L I B R A R Y

MAY Z1 1969The American University

Washington, D. C . ASHlNGTON. O. C.

39 so

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE PROBLEM AND ITS APPROACH THROUGH

ORIGINAL WORKS OF ART.............................. 1

II. HISTORICAL SURVEY OF THE P R O B L E M .................... 10The Renaissance....................................... 10

The Seventeenth Century.............................. 15

The Eighteenth Century ..................... 20

The Nineteenth Century ............................ 26

The Twentieth Century.................... 33

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PRINTS PAGE

PRINT NUMBER ONE...................... 2

PRINT NUMBER TWO.................................... 3

PRINT NUMBER THREE.................................. 4

PRINT NUMBER F O U R .................................. 5

PRINT NUMBER F I V E .................................. 6

PRINT NUMBER SIX. . . . . . . .................... 7

PRINT NUMBER SEVEN.................................. 8

CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM AND ITS APPROACH THROUGH

ORIGINAL WORKS OF ART

A twentieth century artist, embarking upon the execu­

tion of his first black and white print, may feel a bit

cramped, or perhaps relieved, to realize that he has essen­

tially only two elements to manipulate. Regardless of his

technique, the finished product will ordinarily be black ink

on white paper. Because of the difficulty encountered in

regaining white areas which have been lost in engraving,

etching, or lithography, the artist immediately senses that

the easier element to manipulate Is the black Ink. For this

reason, historical surveys will show that an almost infinite

number of effects have been achieved with the ink, while

relatively little has been done to manipulate and activate

the white of the paper.^

^It must be noted that in the case of woodcuts or linocuts, the problem is reversed, and white areas are easier to manipulate, as they are cut from a surface which would other­wise print black. Since the original works to be discussed here are lithographs, however, the white element will normally be discussed as the more difficult element to manipulate.

In a series of seven black and white lithographs,

done for this study, the white of the paper was exploited and

activated in a variety of ways. In the first example, the

white is used as natural light, which breaks c'nrough from be­

hind a barrier of trees. On the right side of the print,

where the most intense break-through occurs, the edges of the

openings which admit the light are blurred by the glare that

would occur in such a visual situation. The attempt is to

duplicate the visual experience, rather than to resort to a

more traditional description of how natural light might illu­

minate forms.

PRINT NUMBER ONE

The second print in the series exhibits some of the

same "light barrier" effects, but houses them in a somewhat

more abstract setting. In addition, light filters through

some translucent substances on the left, and falls over a

variety of surfaces, suggestive of an interior. The feeling

that the white paper is being used as natural light persists,

even though the identity of objects which receive the light

is of little importance.

>ci « AVM

PRINT NUMBER TWO

In the prints numbered three and four, progressive

attempts were made to activate the white areas in a totally

abstract setting. In Print Number Three, the dark area still

holds together as a unit, but active whites break in from the

back, and play across surfaces on the front. Still, the over­

all distribution of darks in relation to the format, asserts

the truth that black form was printed over a white page.

PRINT NUMBER THREE

The same may be said of Print Number Four, except that,

in this case, the whites do-a tmjre complete job of breaking

up the dark area. Some fragments now float free of the main

form. In addition, whites are no longer only dynamically

directional, but begin to assume quite positive shapes.

The last three prints explore ways in which black and

white elements may be made completely equal in importance,

activity, and meaning.

PRINT NUMBER FOUR

In Print Number Five, the entire format is filled with

black and white dots, which seem to coagulate into floating,

directional forms. This was done by abandoning the more tradi­

tional crayon drawing and tusche brushwork for an alternate

spattering of gum arable and tusche over the stone. White areas

were brought to the same level of positive direction and shape

as the black areas by additional work with strong acid to "erase"

some of the black dots. The effect is to fill the print with

black and white elements which are equal to each other in direc­

tion, movement, and positive shape quality. Neither tone

operates as form, relegating the opposite tone to the position

of background.

< A * - /

PRINT NUMBER FIVE

In Print Number Six, the same equality of black and white tones was sought, but an attempt was made to retain more

structure and solidity than was present in Print Number Four.

Black and white elements are not so purely directional, but

establish solid positions, and operate as more positive shapes.

Each tone operates in some places as ground, and in other places

as object. In this print, the system is meant to work within

the realm of traditional methods of crayon and tusche work,

and within a world of planes that might belong to everyday

objects, although nothing is easily identifiable.

PRINT NUMBER SIX

8

In Print Number Seven, the world of everyday objects

is more completely abandoned for a world of flatter, less

planular black and white shapes. Again, the format is com­

pletely filled with shapes, and neither black nor white is

consistently background or consistently form. Here lines, as

well as shapes, may be either black or white. Both elements

exist side by side, as equally active forces in the entirely

non-objective milieu. Thus, the end of freeing white from its

original role, and making it a totally active element, is

achieved.

PRINT NUMBER SEVEN

In the seven prints discussed here, a variety of ways

have been explored in which the white of the paper may be made

an active element in the print. Although this is only one of

many interests which might occupy a printmaker, it seems that,

considering how few manipulatable elements are available to the

maker of black and white prints, a thorough knowledge of the

possibilities inherent in the white surfaces, would inevitably

be a helpful tool.

CHAPTER II

HISTORICAL SURVEY OF THE PROBLEM

Although complete activation of white surfaces is

most easily achieved in the non-objective milieu often found

in twentieth century art, many important printmakers in the

past have used white surfaces in a variety of more or less

active ways. A survey of past achievements is quite helpful

in placing the problem in proper historical perspective, and

in revealing its importance in the realm of black and white

printmaking.

Since relatively little has been written on the specific

problem under investigation, the greater part of the historical

research was done by looking at the vast number or original

prints available in the Washington, D. C. area, principally

at the Library of Congress and The National Gallery of Art.

I. THE RENAISSANCE

Black and white printmaking received its first signi­

ficant exploration as an art form late in the fifteenth cen­

tury. Even before prints were produced as art objects per se,

they were used as illuminations in books. The earliest

11

examples are mostly woodcuts, as they could be printed without

the benefit of a press. An anonymous woodcut of Christ on the

Cross, from a French missal of about 1490, is owned by the

National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C. , and represents

a good beginning point for the study of the problem under con­

sideration. As in most Renaissance prints, one finds here a

simple black line drawing printed on white paper. In addition

to the black lines which enclose all objects, there is some very

mechanical cross-hatching on the figure to indicate shadows, and

to turn forms in a mildly three-dimensional way. This approach

to printmaking was the general practice in the fifteenth century,

and remained common throughout the sixteenth century in the work

of many individual printmakers, Pieter Breugel, the elder,

is an excellent example of a well-known printmaker, working

throughout the middle years of the sixteenth century, who was

quite satisfied to use the white paper merely as a background

for his black line drawings.Other printmakers, however, soon became interested in

organizing areas of contrasting tone into interesting patterns,

Albrecht Altdorfer, working early in the sixteenth century.

- 12

was one of the first to organize darkened areas for composi­

tional effects. In his Judgment of Paris, he took an addi­

tional step forward as he began to explore the possibility of making whites more positive in shape.

Other artists working early in the century, such as

Hans Burgkmair, further developed the idea of positive white

shapes. Many artists, like Burgkmair, insisted on enclosing

the white shapes in heavy static boundaries. Heinrich Aldegrever,

however, increased the activity of white areas by lightening,

if not eliminating, these boundaries. In addition, he became

quite successful in controlling and using the tendency of

whites to advance. These developments may easily be seen in

his Fall of Man, from 1540. In addition to making white areas

more positive and more active, Aldegrever made advances in the

compositional organization of whites. In the third print from

his Large Wedding Dancer series, of 1538, he abandoned the usual depiction of natural light for a record of a very irra­

tional light which picks out a conscious series of white tri­

angular shapes.Ludovico Carracci carried the process a step further

in his Adoration of Kings, in which lights and darks run

13

through the whole Composition, fragmenting figures and objects

to a much greater degree than had ever been done before.

Later in the sixteenth century, Hendrik Goltzius ex­

perimented with reversing the usual tradition of a black

line drawing on white paper, by doing night scenes in which

the background was made black, and well planned lights were

left in positive shapes, such as the moon. These efforts

represent some of the earliest attempts at indicating light

sources within prints.

The greatest master of Renaissance printmaking, however,

was probably Albrecht Durer, In spite of the fact that he

lived early in the sixteenth century, his extensive experi­

mentation in graphics led him to do some of the most advanced

work of the Renaissance. In terms of activating the white

element in the print, his work is not surpassed until well

into the seventeenth century.In his early woodcuts, such as the Life of the Virgin

series, Durer started in the traditional way, simply imposing

a black drawing over a white background. Soon, however, he

became interested in exploring the advancing qualities of whites.

The Great Horse is one of the most striking results of his

14

experimentation along this line. The horse’s rump, the

largest white shape in the print, comes forward so strongly

that it actually seems to protrude beyond the picture plane.

In addition to such specialized effects. Durer became

interested in stressing the importance of white areas purely

through the visual qualities of their two-dimensional shapes.

In the Small Passion print of Christ Appearing to Mary Mag­

dalene . a large rectangle and a large triangle of almost pure

white appear in a very dark format. There is no naturalistic

reason for these shapes, and they are clearly chosen to empha­

size an abstract composition which emerges from the print

even more strongly than does the Renaissance drawing. In his

Saint Jerome in Penetence, of about 1497, Durer not only

emphasized a few white shapes, but put them together in an

extremely beautiful and effective pattern. A white circle

started by rocks and sky is completed on the right side of

the print by a sort of river of light flowing among the dark rocks. It is apparent that this river shape^ is supposed to

be land, not water, and we suddenly realize that Durer had

given up naturalistically explainable objects for the sake

of a marvelously abstract pattern of whites.

15

In Durer’s Christ Driving the Merchants from the Temple.

we see another development in the use of positive white forms.

The white shape of Christ's raised arm is repeated, in a

transposed position, by a large white shape on his lower robe.

Thus, the downward movement of the arm, toward the merchant,

seems to be anticipated.

Another bold experiment in composing with white occurs

in Durer's series of Knots, Here he reversed the traditional

light-dark scheme by making the entire background black, and

leaving only one continuous winding line of white over the

surface.

Thus, we see that in the work of Durer, and in Renais- ,

sance printmaking in general, the print evolved from its

original form of a black line drawing over a white background,

into a form of skillful composition which sometimes emphasized

positive white shapes and occasionally combined them into

active, effective white patterns,

II, THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

By the beginning of the seventeenth century, many

artists had learned to compose well with the contrasting

16

elements of black and white. One of the greatest masters of

this art was Rembrandt, Often the most important shapes in

his prints are the white shapes of the paper left after the

major surface area has become quite dark with cross-hatching.

An example of this is the 1635 etching of Saint Jerome Kneel­

ing in Prayer, in which the saint's robe is composed of two

large white rectangles. Another beautiful composition is

present in The Circumcision, of 1630. Here the action takes

place in a circle of light surrounded by a circle of dark

shadows. Outside of this, another concentric circle of white

is started by a string of figures and completed by a curve of

incense smoke and a light doorway. In the 1652 print of David

in Prayer, positive white shapes again set up beautiful rhythms,

as the curve of the body bent in prayer is repeated by the curve

of a drape above the bed.

Rembrandt used whites, not only to create these ab­

stract light patterns, but to give the feeling of a real, if irrational and extremely personal, kind of light. The effect

of very strong light is seen in his Self-Portrait. Shouting.

Here the left side of the face is brightly illuminated, and

17

Rembrandt grimaces as though a bright light had suddenly

been thrown into his eyes. In another self-portrait, this

one in a cap and scarf, an unusual effect is obtained by keeping the face and front of the figure in darkness, with

the light making a bright spot on one cheek and one shoulder.

Another mysterious light situation is created in the print of

Dr. Faustus in his Study Watching £ Magic Disc. Here the disc

is felt to be a very strong source of light. Although Rembrandt

used the old convention, of drawing black and white rays out

from the disc, he also blurred the edges of the disc to make

it more visually realistic. In addition, a strong light from

the disc seems to fall on Dr. Faustus' face. It is interesting

that Rembrandt could create such a feeling of light in the

small disc, and succeed in having no light sensation coming

from the larger, closer white globe in the lower right corner

of the print. This is achieved by putting the less important

globe in generally light surroundings, keeping its edges very

clear, and drawing in its details in a sketchy, less realistic

manner. This print shows a great mastery of the white of the

paper in achieving a variety of effects.

In his search for his own unique expression and his

18

own mysterious light, however, Rembrandt left achievements

in the field of natural daylight to others.

Claes Berchem, in his Flute Player, of 1652, abandoned

all black and white line drawing of light rays, for the depic­

tion of a shaft of light which comes from a window and makes

a white streak in the air before a grey wall,

Sadeler developed this further in his Forest Scene,

of 1604, and in his Church and Stone Arch. Here wide shafts

of light come across the sky and down to earth, illuminating

everything in their paths. These light effects are obviously

still drawn records, but come very close to the visual reality

of shafts of light which we have all seen coming through trees

in the afternoon.

Adrian van Ostade was another artist who was inter­

ested in natural light. He wished to abandon what he knew

to be true of the actions of light, for some first hand visual

discoveries. In his print called The Painter, one immediately

notices the basket hanging in front of a bright window. It is

depicted as we would probably see it in such a situation.

It becomes merely a silhouette, and we are unable to see its

details against the light. By treating the black form of the

19

basket in this way, van Ostade has made the white of the paper

appear to be light bursting into the room through the open

window.

The person who comes closest to the depiction of a

visually accurate light situation in the seventeenth century

is the painter and marvelous draftsman, Claude de Lorrain,

In his etching called Sunset, an attempt is made, to give the

viewer the feeling that he is actually looking into a bright

light. Everything is blurred around the area of the sun.

Even a boat which is relatively close to the viewer, but must

be seen by looking toward the sun, is made quite indistinct.

The effect is even more convincing because we have to look

very closely to tell that the subtle graduations in the sky

are made with line. In another etching called The Dance at the

Side of the Water, a similar thing occurs. Here Claude made

the water very white, and blurred the edges of the opposite

shore, as though bright reflections on the water were pre­

venting us from seeing details on the far bank.It is important to point out that, although many light

effects were explored in the seventeenth century, the constant

linearity of etching and engraving techniques serves to remind

20

the viewer that he is seeing drawn records, and not actual

situations. Although the delicate technique of Claude de

Lorrain may lessen the reminder, the problem was not really

overcome until the advent of aquatint in the next century.

The real advances in seventeenth century printmaking were

made by Rembrandt, who was a genius at manipulating the white

of the paper for compositional reasons and for unusual light

effects; and by a number of men who abandoned the Renaissance

records of light in order to use the white element for the

beginnings of more visual approaches,

III. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The eighteenth century saw _a flourish, of sorts, in

printmaking, but the character of court life, and the social

interests of the age made it a flourish of critics, connois­

seurs, and amateurs, rather than of real artists. The general

trend was toward the use of the print for a variety of very

specific purposes which had little to do with its qualities

as a unique art form. Typical users of the medium were;

Thomas Bewick, who did an enormous number of realistic line

studies of animals; E, Roll, who did many simple line drawings

21

for calendars; Carlo Gregori, who did a number of studies of

pieces of Italian sculpture, especially busts; Rowlandson and Hogarth, who did satirical scenes of daily life; and an

enormous number of people who delt strictly in portraiture.

Many of these prints show skillful drawing and good use of

the techniques of engraving and etching, but whatever the

particular interest, it was usually an illustrative one.Pictorial problems, such as an active use of white elements,

were delt with by relatively few people.

Giovanni Battista Piranesi was a man who basically

had an illustrative interest in printmaking, but who was an

artist by nature, and went beyond mere illustration to pro­

duce many great works of art.. Trained as an architect, he

produced an enormous number of engravings of monuments, orna­

ments, maps, and plans. In his series of Prisons, however,

he departed from strict visual reality to let his imagination

roam a world of colossal structures full of scaffolding,

galleries, and machines of torture. He also let his imagina­

tion play with a variety of intricate light situations that

might occur in these interiors. Although his technique is

quite linear, his densly cross-hatched darks make the occassional

22

lights very meaningful and active. Usually the whites

gain positive shapes by being confined beneath dark arches.

Occasionally, they have strong directional impact, as shafts

of light falling across walls.

A number of other eighteenth century artists continued

to develop the use of white shapes for compositional reasons,

but most often their achievements fell far short of those of

Rembrandt in the preceeding century., They do, however, repre­

sent an advance in terms of the problem presented here as a

number of them, notably the Germans, Salomon Gessner, Johan

Frey, and Fredrich Miller were willing, to an increasing

degree, to give up representation for purely abstract forms,

both black and white. All of them, however, were bound to a

linear technique which eventually reveals their works to be

black line drawings on white surfaces. This linear restric­

tion was to be removed, however, in the last half of the

eighteenth century with the advent of the aquatint process.

Many early users of the technique seem to have been overcome

by the mere thrill of achieving a variety of tones, and their

work appears today as nothing more than a group of elementary

23

exercises in aquatint technique, Thomas Gainsborough, how­

ever, achieved more subtle effects in his combinations of

aquatint with soft ground etching. An example is his Land­

scape with Figures on Horseback, in which the landscape is

all done in puffy shapes of various aquatints. In the lower

ground of this print, a very advanced moment in printmaking

occurs, as lights intermingle with darks, becoming almost

equal in importance and activity.

The true eighteenth century master of aquatint, and

the man most willing to give up realism for emotional and

pictorial effects was, of course, Francisco Goya y Lucientes.

In his work, white positive shapes and positive directions

equal or surpass dark forms in activity and meaning. Some

of his strongest prints, in this respect, occur in the

Capricho series of etchings. ̂ In the print entitled Que Viene

el Loco, a few bright triangular shapes are picked out on

the figures, as in some situation of extremely unnatural light.

Here, for the first time, whites are clearly shaped by active

brush strokes. This is the result of the technique of brushing

varnish over the aquatint in areas which are to remain white.

Previously whites depended for their shapes on how they were

24

surrounded by black line work.

In Nadie se Conoce. striking brushstroke patches

again fragment the figures. In ^ Quebro el Cantaro, the

strokes are used in conjunction with black lines, to denote

wash hanging on a clothesline. Here Goya did not meticulously

fill in the black lines with the white strokes, as many art­

ists would have done, but used the brush quite freely. As a

result, the whites form a cooperative, but independent, sys­

tem in relation to the dark lines.

Another advance also takes place in the Capricho

series. In Pobrecitas and Duenducites, triangular shapes of

negative spaces are left as the most important positive white

shapes. Before this, the most important shapes were always

figures, or objects, or parts thereof. Here, however, whites

are used for purely pictorial and completely abstract reasons,

even though they remain in narrative contexts.

Turning to the Disasters of War series, a group of

etchings done somewhat later than the Caprichos, we notice

a continuing concern for pictorial uses of light and dark

areas. ^ ̂ Convlenen is particularly striking in its

25

diagonal division into one dark and one light triangle.

There seems to be no naturalistic reason for such division,

and the effect is strikingly modern and abstract. ,

In addition to continuing his development of pictorial

problems in the Disasters of War series, Goya used active

dark and light contrasts for heightened emotional effects.

Las Mugeres dan Valor is one of many prints in which Goya

used a rather coarse grade of aquatint. The resulting irreg­ular white spots concentrate in the center of the picture,

around the figures, giving a purely pictorial kind of light.

The bizarre shapes of the white spots add to the tension and

horror of the scene. They seem to have a movement of their

own as they condense and converge on the violent action of

the central figures. In Gracias a _la Almorta, a similar

coarse aquatint makes bizarre suggestions of architecture and

clouds. In De que Sirve una Taza?, this type of aquatint

completely surrounds the figures, obliterating the line bet­

ween sky and ground, and making a flat space in which tortured

figures bend. In M por Esas, a darker, finer aquatint

ground is interrupted by a bright arch of light in which the

action takes place. There seems to be no natural reason for

26

this light, and no suggestion of architecture is shown. It

is purely a pictorial form of emphasis for the violent activity framed.

In these prints, and many more, Goya exploits, al­most unendingly, the possibilities of dynamic dark and light

for pictorial and emotional means. In his darkly aquatinted

plates, the few remaining whites sparkle and take on tremen­

dous significance. Always the areas left white are extremely

well chosen for the purpose at hand. Although his explora­

tions always remain within the limits of a narrative context,

Goya provides the inspiration and strength for the totally

abstract prints that are to come in the twentieth century.

IV. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The nineteenth century continued to see printing used

for a number of illustrative purposes. Especially notable

are the thousands of portraits which excelled in realistic

depiction of the subject, and little else. In this century,

printmaking was explored by a number of notable Americans,

including Winslow Homer and James Abbot McNeill Whistler.

27

Both worked in a basically linear method of etching, and were

content to use the white of the paper as a background for

their black line drawings. Although Whistler is considered

one of the greatest etchers produced by any country, for his

sensitive drawing and refinement in tone and pattern, he

made no notable advances in terms of the problem of activating

the white surfaces of the paper.

One American did, however, approach the problem, and

make significant advances in his etchings and lithographs.

He was Joseph Pennell, who lived in the second half of the

century, and devoted himself almost exclusively to printmaking.

One of the ways in which he used the white surface was for the

effect of natural light. In his etching of St. Paul's Cathe­

dral, The West Door, the upper part of the print, which re­

presents the cathedral, is quite black. The street below and

an opening in the architecture are quite white, and figures

in the street area are quite bleached out and difficult to see,

as they would appear to someone stepping out of the cathedral

into bright sunlight. Natural light is again explored in a

number of lithographs, including Night in the Valley— Yosemite,

Here Pennell became intrigued with the way light is admitted

28

in bright spots through the coarse stone formations. Sun­

set Cities in the Canyon is another lithograph from the same

group, in which the canyon remains dark, except for a light

which falls on a group of rock shapes, making them appear

as luminous white cities in the distance. Here the white rock

shapes are the most positive and dynamic shapes in the print.^

Most often, however, Pennell found his stimulation in

the artificial lights of industrial cities at night. In his

lithograph of Furnaces at Night, the black of furnaces and

sky is relieved-by puffs of white smoke, which are the most

positive shapes in the print. In Shot, we see another night

sky, this time pierced by searchlights which scan the sky,

crossing each other in fascinating patterns, and being re­

flected in the water below. Another striking effect occurs

in Evening in the Munitions Country, where a multitude of

vertical white stripes overlay the grey industrial scene,

giving a feeling of dense fog or rain. In Shops at Night,

another industrial scene is depicted all in greys and blacks,

except for some greenhouse-like buildings on the right,

artificially lit from the inside. No white shapes could be

more positive than these luminous white buildings shining

29

alone in the dark, industrial night. Pennell, in prints

like these, obtained the most positive and dynamic whites

possible within the confines of a realistic situation. He

differs from Goya in remaining much more naturalistic, and

in using lonely industrial buildings instead of figures to

convey his message. His solution differs from Goya's also

in that he usually subordinated the dark elements, making

them background areas for his active white shapes, whereas

Goya was often successful in activating both lights and darks

in the same print.

In Europe, the most striking advances came in the

field of depicting outdoor daylight. This is probably due,

at least in part, to the nineteenth century romantic attitude

toward nature. The Englishman, Sir Francis Seymour Haden is

a notable example of an artist who sought effects of natural

light. In his Early Morning. Richmond Park, a haze of in­

definite forms on the right side of the print gives an early

morning feeling, to which his skillful drypoint technique

adds immeasurably. In Deer in a Hazy Landscape, he uses

mezzotint to depict the sun burning through grey clouds.

Tonal areas have no definite boundaries, and the atmosphere

30

is one of a mystical, unreal light,

Richard Bonington in England, and Charles Daubigny in France, were other nature lovers who worked to gain

natural light effects by softening the edges of light areas,

but it remained for the Englishman, J. M. W, Turner to say the last word in realistic light effects. His plates are a

combination of etching and mezzotint technique, sometimes

done completely by him, and sometimes finished by an engraver

under his careful supervision. Hind Head Hill is a good ex­

ample of the subtle effects that can be gained by a sensitive

mezzotint artist. It is a study of the way light breaks through

clouds in a variety of directions. In Little Devil 's Bridge,

as in many prints, Turner fills the sky with wispy, subtle

cloud formations. No longer do we see the traditional cloud shapes of previous times, but an airy cloudy feeling obtained

by a skillful burnishing of the mezzotint. In the Fifth

Plague of Egypt, and in the Lake of Thun. Turner recreates

lightning effects, combined with the effects of light on

clouds. Usually, however, he is not so dramatic, and is

content with an absolutely convincing treatment of a sky

that gradually lightens near the horizon. An example is

31

Castle above the Meadow, where the lightened sky silhouettes

an English castle. The miracle of Turner is in his absolutely

convincing realism. No other printmaker has succeeded so

completely in making the viewer feel that he is in the pres­

ence of a situation of natural light. The secret of his

realism lies in his subtlety and his giving up of all con­

ventions for a depiction of what he actually sees, translated

to paper through the tonal medium of mezzotint.

Later in the century, the Impressionists were to per­

petuate an interest in visual light effects, but instead of

Turner’s visual realism, they followed more subjective, per­

sonal paths, Edouard Manet, in his delightful etching, Queve

a Boucherie. recorded the appearance of light striking

umbrella sections in an intriguing pattern. In addition, the

black mass is broken by other white triangular sections that

seem to have no realistic reason, but may very well have comefrom some visual prompting. Edgar Degas, in his etching and

aquatint, Loges d*Actrices. explored the reflection of light

on mirrors, and in his lithograph Aux Ambassadeurs. Mlle.

Beçat, depicted the soft globes of white light so familiar

in his paintings of night scenes.

32

Childe Hassam, working in the United States at the

time, felt the influence of the Impressionist movement, and

used the lithographic medium to explore the effects of light.

In his Broad Curtain, we see an interior in which everything

is subordinated to the effect of light coming through a

broad translucent curtain. In his Street Scene with Light

Filtering Through Trees. we see exactly the Impressionistic

effect that might be expected from the title.

In looking back over the nineteenth century, we have

seen many ways in which individuals have used the white

surfaces of the paper for various effects. The Impressionists

had an intense interest in light, but were basically painters,

and did not explore the printmaking medium as much as they

might have if it were a vehicle of more immediacy. The high

points of the century came, in America, with Joseph Pennell,

who made the white of artificial lights in industrial land­

scapes as positive and dynamic as anything could be in a

realistic setting; and, in England, with Turner, who said

the last possible word in the creation of a feeling of light

as it appears in nature.

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V. THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

In terms of the activation of the white surfaces, the

most striking .developments so far in the twentieth century

have resulted from the progressive willingness of printmakers

to give up objective images and use white areas as free,

active elements. These developments, however, have been quite

gradual. Many artists, such as Kathe Kollwitz, used whites

as dynamic compositional elements to serve the emotional

impact desired, but never broke away from quite literal images.

Braque and Picasso, although primarily painters, did

a significant number of prints and represent a beginning point

in freeing white elements from literal images. Although both

men did a number of prints which were merely black line-draw­

ings over white backgrounds, there are some notable exceptions

One is Braque's untitled woodcut of a bird which bears the

initials "G, B." Here a large black bird on a white ground

is encircled and intersected at four points by a continuous

black band. Where the black band cuts across the black bird,

the shape of the intersection is made white. This results

in a highly abstract design.

34

Picasso also occasionally broke away from his usual

linear method, as in the lithograph, W Grande Corrida, of

1949. This print is primarily abstract tusche work, with

some linear faces added. Blacks and whites are both dynamic,

and each has a characteristic form. The whites tend to be

linear, interweaving forms, whereas the blacks tend to be

rounder, more compact shapes, Picasso also did a number of

lithographs in which he simply reversed the usual form, and

made a white drawing on a black background. This reversal

of black and white elements was used by dozens of printmakers

in the twentieth century for its striking effects. It was

especially popular among woodcut and linocut artists, who

work from a black surface, adding whites as they cut.Another artist who usually retains objects or figures,

but in a highly abstracted form, is the American, Leonard

Baskin. He performs the unusual feat of using black linear

elements over a white ground, while making white shapes the

most active elements in the print. His success is due to the

characteristic dynamic shapes into which his vein-like lines

divide the white surface, Tobias and the Angel, Moses, and

35

Portrait of an Irishman, are three woodcuts In which figur­ative themes are very abstractly handled by this method. In

The Large White Head, a lithograph, Baskin has changed the

ground around the hedd shape to black. Linear blacks cut

into the white area from the sides, slashing the head into

a number of smaller dynamic shapes. In two smaller woodcuts,

used as announcements for New York shows, Baskin becomes even

more abstract. In a 1962 announcement for a show at the Grace Borgenicht Gallery, the background area is white on

the right side, but black on the left. White positive shapes

outlined and shadowed in black, seem to charge around the

format.. Only upon careful inspection does the large central

figure reveal itself to be some sort of monstrous animal.

Misch Kohn is another contemporary American whose work

tends toward linearity. Many of his black and white etchings

use the white merely as background for drawings done with a

characteristic blotty line. In these prints, little attention

seems to be paid to the white shapes which occur. In the 1950's,

however, Kohn did a group of woodcuts which very closely re­

semble those of Baskin, The main difference seems to be that Kohn's prints have, in addition to the black linear elements.

36

strong structures of solid black shapes. In The Mountain

Climber. of 1951, large rectangular black shapes pile up to structure the composition. The spaces between these

large shapes are filled with vein-like networks of black

lines, which result in characteristic white shapes similar

to those used by Baskin. In Ihe F Isherman, of 1950, and Job,

of 1959, the heavy black structures are more linear, but

remain sharply contrasted to the smaller lines which divide

the whites into the characteristic shapes.

Another approach to activating white elements has

been to divide the print into two major parts, using black

as background in one part and white in the other. Both black

and white elements then play active roles against these back­

ground areas. A striking example of this is Antonio Frasconi's

woodcut. Day and Night, of 1952, The horizontal format is

divided into black and white halves with one large tree in

the center, which is depicted in the opposite tone to the

ground in each section, David Glines does something similar

in his etching, Classical Effigy, in which an abstract figure,

made of both black and white forms, occupies a central position

where the white ground of the right half meets the dark ground

37

of the left half. Maurits Escher frequently uses the same

approach. A good example is his Night and Day, of 1938.

Here an intricate landscape is depicted, the right half of

which is a mirror image of the left half, except that the

tones are reversed. A very striking feature of this printV -

is the large area of sky, in which black stylized ducks flying to the left interlock with white duck shapes flying to the

right, to make an irregular checkerboard pattern. Joseph

Gielmak also works on a ground of both tones. His Sanatorium,

a linocut, is one of many prints in which both black and white

figures are active on a ground that shades from black at the

bottom to white at the top.Other advocates of the divided ground were the German

Expressionists. Usually, however, they preferred smaller

divisions to divisions of halves. Frans Marc and Ernst Kirchner

achieved interesting results by dividing the ground into stripes

and working over them with both black and white elements. The

Norwegian, Edvard Munch, who is often associated with the

German Expressionists, used this method to create one of the

most famous prints of the early twentieth century in his

lithograph, The Cry. Here the ground is made up of agitated

38

black and white stripes, which go in different directions

in different areas. The body of the central, screaming,

figure is a black shape, while the head and hands are white

with black line detail. Here the meaning of the brusk,

agitated forms and patterns of the Expressionist group are

most clear. The sharp black and white contrasts promote a

mood of heightened emotion, and the severely abstracted and

distorted figure is filled with psychological meaning. This

print is a good example of the point to which the German

Expressionists brought the treatment of both black and white

elements and subject matter. Here, as in most German Ex­

pressionist prints, the human condition, and the artist's

emotion about it, are the subject of the print. The print

may be very abstract, but it is never non-objective. In

addition, one compositional limitation seems to remain. Al­

most inevitably, the scheme contains a figure, object, or

shape, plus a background area. It remained for printmakers

outside of this group, pursuing more individual, personal

goals to drop the figure-ground format and escape the literal

and humanistic images. Having escaped these limits it be­

came possible to explore active white, black, and grey elements

39

over the entire surface of the print in a non-objective

milieu.

One way in which the new milieu was sought was to

fill the format of the print with black and white spots,

which coagulate into non-objective shapes moving over the

entire surface of the print. Print Number Five of the author,

illustrated elsewhere in this paper, is an example of this

approach. Another example is Ruth Cyril's etching, Winter

Moon, of 1957, which becomes objective only when its title is considered. The print, Itself, merely contains abstract,

irregular black and white shapes organized in horizontal

layers. Christian Kruck's lithograph, Buchte Boote. of 1960,

is another example. Here tusche washes of various tones, and

floating blots of black and white, intermingle over the entire

surface. June Wayne also executed a number of lithographs in

which she explored a technique which could have been used

to similar ends. She employed washes of irregular black and

white elements which seem to indicate the use of mutually

repellant materials, such as oil and water. Her purpose,

however, was almost always literary, and figures were inserted

for this reason, as well as for structural reasons.

40

Indeed, most printmakers tend to feel that a print needs a firmer structure than is present in the prints just

discussed. John Coleman is a contemporary maker of abstract

etchings, who has a firm sense of structure. His titles

usually denote objective subject matter, but frequently no objects are discernible. An example is his Crucifixion, in

which black and white fragments move in a roughly circular

pattern. Except for one black shape which might be a ladder,

no object can be identified. In another print by Coleman,

called MeIrose Avenue, the gigantic format is totally filled*

wA:h flying black and white fragments which tend to converge

on the center. This is an excellent example of a non-objective

print in which white elements and black elements are equal in

activity and importance throughout the entire format.

George O'Connell also has achieved this equality in

a number of prints. His large untitled etching and aquatint,

owned by the Library of Congress, is an example. It is non­objective, and contains a variety of tones, textures, and

linear work, controlled by a sort of vertical-horizontal

organization. The space is quite ambiguous, and it is im­

possible to point out any element which is definitely figure

41

or ground. The white of the paper is seen as equal to the black of the ink in activity and importance.

From this historical survey, one sees that important printmakers have, from the time of Durer to the present day,

been interested in using the white paper as an active element

in the print. In every age, however, there was a far greater

number of men who were perfectly satisfied to use the white

paper merely as a relatively inert background for a black

line drawing. For the most part, these men have not been

discussed here, but it is to them that we owe the common

opinion among laymen, and, in fact, among many artists, that

a print is usually a line drawing which can be reproduced.

Contemporary printmakers, in many cases, are anxious to dispel

this traditional view, and explore, through a variety of ex­periments, effects which can be obtained through the medium

of printmaking alone. One element of this experimentation has been the concept of freeing the white paper from its tradi­

tional role as background, to become an active and important element in the print. Actually, in this area, printmaking

has been far behind drawing and painting for some time.Early in his career, DeKooning explored a space ambiguity

42

which made the background equal in importance to the object.

In his drawings one is struck by the activity of white ele­

ments, and by the fact that neither white nor black can be

said to be clearly figure or ground. Following closely

upon DeKooning's Heels were a number of other artists who

explored this pictorial problem in their drawings and paintings.

If printmaking fell behind in such explorations, however,

there was good reason for it. In printmaking, the quick rub

of an eraser, or stroke of a brush does not bring forth a

white area. Usually white areas must be preserved by careful

planning, or retrieved with great difficulty. Quick adjust­ment of black and white elements is impossible. In instances,

however, the problem has been approached and solved quite

successfully.The purpose of this paper is not, however, to imply

in any way, that the printmaker who most completely activates

the white of the paper is the most successful printmaker.This is only one of many pictorial ideas which the contempor­

ary printmaker might pursue. It does seem, however, consider­

ing the few manipulât able elements available to the maker of

43

black and white prints, that a thorough knowledge of the

possibilities inherent in the white surfaces, would in­

evitably be a helpful tool. Hopefully, this study of the past, linked with a few examples of personal experimentation,

may be of value to other artists interested in exploring the

realm of the black and white print.