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You are hereHarvey-LeeHomeHarvey-LeeCatalogues - Main Introduction Harvey-LeeGraven Images

GRAVEN IMAGES

Graven Images, Elizabeth Harvey-LeeAs the earliest writing took the form of pictographs that powerful phrase “In the beginning was the Word” could as appositely be rendered as “In the beginning was the Image”. The very word 'image' has a potency of concept the more enhanced when in conjunction with the word 'graven' with its biblical connotations, lost in the more prosaic modern usage “printed images”.

It is a significant semantic curiosity that today the word 'image' is almost always confined to discussion of printed material. Paintings are described in terms of imagery and particular “passages of painting” are singled out for praise. One would not encapsulate appreciation of the actual painting of the ‘Mona Lisa’ in the words a “stunning image” but the phrase would adequately demonstrate the achievement of not only the most famous of original prints such as Dürer’s ‘Melancolia’, Rembrandt’s ‘Christ presented to the People’ or Picasso’s ‘Minotauromachie’ (and indeed even a colour reproduction print of the ‘Mona Lisa’) but is equally apt for many less widely–known minor masterpieces of printmaking.

Certain intrinsic qualities are specific only to the printed image. The availability of multiple impressions can re-enforce the significance of a particular image, and through familiarity give it an icon-like status. Certain surface textures, quality of line and tonal nuances are only possible through the appropriate technique of engraving, etching, woodblock or lithography. The very action of printing itself adds an extra dimension to printed works of art. Just as one’s own slight doodles gain stature if photocopied, the act of printing which transfers the image from the inked matrix to the paper, stamps an added significance and enhances the immediacy of a graphic image with a sense of permanence and monumentality.

Though the origin of the word 'graphic' lies in the ancient Greek for “hand-drawn” it has come to be associated with the artist drawing not so much on paper but into the etching ground or onto the lithographic stone or woodblock, so that the ‘graphic arts’ have become synonymous with printmaking. By extension, and a compliment to generations of printmakers, graphic as a literary adjective denotes a vividly life-like description of great immediacy and power.

This catalogue offers a wide range of recent acquisitions, mainly in the lower price bracket as a concession to recessionary times. The prints are arranged roughly in chronological and national sequences, though this is abandoned when interesting comparisons in subject matter or technique would otherwise be separated. Artists’ works that are stylistically related or have coincidences in their production are also kept together where practicable. French, Dutch, Germanic and American artists are grouped nationally, while British prints are treated in three more extensive groups – pre-1920, 1920-30, post 1930.

A Muirhead Bone drypoint compared with its accompanying preliminary drawing confirms the power of the printed image, combining graphic immediacy with a fully thought-out finished composition. The front cover of the catalogue demonstrates how a small etching can be successfully enlarged way beyond its actual size (in this instance by 300%) and thus is witness to the monumentality inherent in the original engraved image.

Published 1992
44 pages, 137 items described, 138 illustrations in b/w.

(UK Price: £7, International orders: £10)

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Artists included in the catalogue:

  • Amman J.
  • Anderson S.
  • Ardizzone E.
  • Arms J.T.
  • Austin R.S.
  • Bastien-Lepage J.
  • Bauer M.
  • Beham S.
  • Béjot E.
  • Benson F.W.
  • Bone M.
  • Bone S.
  • Brangwyn F.
  • Büsinck L.
  • Callot J.
  • Cameron D.Y.
  • Carrière E.
  • Chamberlain S.
  • Copley J.
  • Cowern R.T.
  • Craig E.G.
  • Daniel H.W.
  • Daumier H.
  • Detmold E.J.
  • Dix O.
  • Dodd F.
  • Drury P.
  • Dupont P.
  • Dürer A.
  • Dyck A. van
  • Evershed A.
  • Figura H.
  • Gabain E.
  • Gaskell P.
  • Gethin P.F.
  • Gibbings R.
  • Gill E.
  • Griggs F.L.M.
  • Gross A.
  • Guthrie J.J.
  • Hartrick A.S.
  • Holmes K.
  • Kasimir L.
  • Keene C.S.
  • Klemm W.
  • Kobell F.
  • Lange O.
  • Lee-Hankey W.
  • Legrand L.
  • Legros A.
  • Leibl W.
  • Lieberman M.
  • Lindsay L.
  • Macleod W.D.
  • McNab A.
  • Marchand J.
  • Matham J.
  • Meidner L.
  • Monogrammist MT
  • Morgan W.E.C.
  • Osborne M
  • Palmer S.
  • Perelle
  • Raffaëlli J.F.
  • Ravesteyn J. van
  • Read D.
  • Robins W.P.
  • Rodin A.
  • Rosenburg L.C.
  • Roussel T.C.
  • Rushbury H.
  • Schmutzer F.
  • Short F.
  • Skippe J.
  • Slevogt M.
  • Solis V.
  • Soutman P.
  • Spencer N.W.
  • Staeger F.
  • Strang W.
  • Struck H.
  • Sturges D.C.
  • Suyderhoef J.
  • Sweet D.
  • Tanner R.
  • Taylor C.W.
  • Tilleard R.
  • Todd A.R.M.
  • Treu M.
  • Vinckboons D.
  • Visscher C.J.
  • Vos M. de
  • Ward L.
  • Warlow H.G.
  • Webb J.
  • Wedgwood G.H.
  • White E.
  • Wierix A.
  • Wolff H.
  • Wolfsfeld E.
  • Wyllie W.L.
  • Zeising W.

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