|
PAPER
TOUCHED with MAGIC
 Tony
de Navarro wrote to the etcher Frederick L Griggs in
1925, when he had seen a study for ‘The Almonry’ You
are a magician Fred. The artist, like the
magician, by skilful sleight of hand, creates something
from nothing. The conjurer draws a rabbit out of an empty
hat; the artist draws a few lines on a blank sheet of
paper and also ‘produces’ a rabbit. The conjuror’s
illusion is hiding the rabbit in the first place; the
figurative draughtsman’s in creating in two dimensions
the effect of three dimension, in translating a living,
breathing animal into a drawing that convinces the viewer.
Equally linear perspective is a ‘trick’ system
of drawing which gives the illusion of architectural
spatial recession . But there is more to art than skill
and it is the extra dimension of the spark of communication
between imagination and understanding that the real magic
lies, an analogy perhaps closer to the sorcerer conjuring
forth spirits.
In the special case of printmaking, as in no other medium,
the artist must further juggle with a matrix on which
he is working in reverse. Though he is rewarded by ultimately
being able to replicate images which though multiples
are, each one, an original work of art.
 In
the introduction to the catalogue raisonné of
his prints Richard Hamilton articulately expresses the
magic an artist finds in the process of printmaking.
Printmaking is a fascinating activity. Part of its
attraction is that it can be done at all. In this cloning
of an authentic, authoritative, individual yet repeatable
mark there is a kind of sorcery.
The
small collection of prints offered in this catalogue
also reveals the sympathetic magic between form and content.
In some the subject is immediately appealing and further
enhanced by the artist’s means of expressing it.
Very occasionally the theme itself is perhaps even distasteful
but none-the-less the underlying abstract form and composition
or the quality of line and execution, intriguingly have
an irrespective power to please.
Published
2001.
56 pages, 103 items described and illustrated in black and white.
(UK
Price: £7, International orders: £10)
^ Return to the top of this page ^
|
|
Artists
included in the catalogue:
- Acroyd
N
- Appian
A
- Austin
F
- Austin
R
- Beham
S
- Bella
S della
- Blake
W
- Bloemaert
A & C
- Bol
H
- Bosse
A
- Both
J
- Boys
T S
- Brangwyn
F
- Brueghel
P
- Bruggen
J van der
- Callot
J
- Calvert
E
- Cameron
D Y
- Castiglione
G B
- Colquhoun
R
- Collaert
A
- Cranach
L
- Cruikshank
G
- Delamotte
W
- Dente
da Ravenna M
- Dodd
F
- Dürer
A
- Dusart
C
- Dyck
A van
- Frélaut
J
- Frommel
C L
- Gill
E
- Grimm
L E
- Grosz
G
- Heintzelman
A W
- Hollar
W
- Hondius
H
- Jacquemin
A
- Janinet
J F
- John
A
- Jones
D
- Lavieille
A
- Lee-Hankey
W
- Legrand
L
- Legros
A
- Leighton
C
- Liebermann
M
- Lievens
J
- Lindsay
L
- Liss
J
- Lozowick
L
- Lucas
van Leyden
- Negker
J de
- Nicholson
W
- Ossenbeck
J van
- Pain
C
- Pissarro
C
- Raimondi
M
- Raverat
G
- Rayner
H
- Reiser
D
- Rembrandt
- Richmond
T K
- Schmutzer
F
- Seaby
A W
- Shannon
C H
- Spilsbury
E A
- Steinlen
T A
- Stubbs
G
- Tanner
R
- Taylor
C WE
- Turbayne
A A
- Urushibara
J
- Voet
A
- Vorsterman
L
- Whistler
J M
- Zorn
A
Return to the top |
