2. The Forms Art Takes

"Would you like to come up and see my etchings?"
Anon (!)

Looking at Prints

At some point in any new undertaking there comes the time when you must make a sharp, decisive step. If you have been reading the seed catalogues and the garden pages all winter, the crucial hour arrives for setting out the seedlings. If you have been studying a better approach to the green, there is a perfect moment in the first spring sun to get outside for a few practice shots with the niblick. And if you have been able to start observing at your local museum and reading the many art books in your city library, perhaps you want to shake off the theory for a practice plunge into the world of buying.

So it is for practical purposes, above all, that we start our forays with the study of prints. While it is obvious that any­thing that comes from a printing press can legitimately be termed a print, my view is a great deal more specialized.

Perhaps we might classify our subject in this chapter as Fine Prints—usually the work of distinguished artists who use the medium of the print, sometimes exclusively but more fre­quently as another mode of expression in addition to pencil, brush, or chisel. The passion for printmaking has run high among great artists and draftsmen since man first chipped a relief on a wood block. Rembrandt . . . Diirer ... the Japanese and the Chinese . . . Botticelli . . . Bruegel . . . Rubens . . . Picasso . . . Klee . . . Braque . . . and hun­dreds more have created memorable prints. Moreover, there are many distinguished printmakers turning out brilliant con­temporary work. It is a fertile field for the collector and one where a modest price often commands a gem of a purchase.

While it is sometimes considered that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, I believe it is most important to know at least something about how a work of art is produced. The information has two contributions to make: (1) it will help you select better prints because you will know at least a few of the finer points of the printmaker's art; (2) it will also help you see why certain types of prints are more valuable, over and above the consideration of the artist in question and the number of prints in a particular edition.

[Fig. E should be vertical—for proper view turn book clockwise to the right.]

Fig. A. Dry Point Etching (Coloured by Hand)
Artist: Jules Pascin

Fig. B. Brush Drawing Coloured Ink
Artist: Stanley W, Hayter

Fig. C. Enamel on Bronze
Artist: Stefan Knapp

Fig. D. Water Color with Pen and Ink
Artist: Marjorie Ruben

ig. E. Casein Painting
Artist: N. Sadimitsu Fujita

Fig. F. Oil Painting
Artist: N.M. Kulkarnis

Fig. G. Oil Painting
Artist: Paul Elsas

Fig. H. “Contemporary” Primitive Oil Painting
Artist: Arthur Davies

Before starting off on our look at printmaking, it would be well to touch briefly on the matter of editions. You will usually find the more valuable prints signed by the artist, particularly in work of the 20th century. In addition, he usually makes a notation of the number of prints in the particular edition and what number print in the edition you hold in your hand. The marking is usually handled in this way: 23/75 Jacques Villon. Often you will find the year in which the print was struck off. The number 23 is the number of the print you are looking at; the number 75 represents the total number of prints in the edition.

Because the law of supply and demand operates as inexor­ably in art as in copper or wheat, the smaller the number of prints in an edition, the greater value each of the individual prints will have. While some artists are known to strike off as many as 300 prints, the more customary edition offers from 50 to 100. Usually an artist will destroy a plate after printing the number allotted to an edition, or he will so deface it that it cannot be used to turn out additional unauthorized prints.

There are a great many "second"—or even "tenth"—printings from plates produced by great early masters who never dis­patched the plates to the scrap heap. Rembrandt has been thus pirated to a great extent. However, such prints are usually fuzzy, lacking the fine definition and brilliant contrast of a superior print in the original edition. Since this practice has now become so well known, it is rare to find it with contem­porary artists. As for prints of the 18th and the 19th centuries, it would be well to check with a person of greater experience before you invest any substantial amount in an alleged original print. If the sum is small, it is not too serious. I own a Rem­brandt etching which I know to have been taken off a set of old plates. But since I found it in an old antique shop in a carved frame for just $18, I feel quite satisfied with my pur­chase. As I have tried to indicate, while the money counts, it should not be the primary factor in your decision to buy.

As you look at prints—and, I hope, talk about them—you will often hear a reference to the "state of a print." This relates only to the series of proofs pulled at various times up to the final proving. When the maker examines the initial proofs as they come from the press, he makes alterations to better his print. Then, of course, he strikes off a new group of proofs and these are known as the print's second state. This could be repeated a dozen times or more, until the artist is happy with the appearance of his work and at last makes his final run on the press.

[In Fig. F pigment is thinly ap­plied; in Fig. G, in "impasto" effect.]

Now to the actual prints themselves, and how they are made. First let us set out the four general classifications into which all prints fall. First, relief, in which a carved surface projects from the bed of the plate and is the printing area. Wood en­gravings are in this group. Second, intaglio, in which the por­tions to be printed are cut into the metal surface and the ink is squeezed into the etched-out, or engraved, lines and the rest of the plate is wiped clean. Intaglio covers etchings, engravings, dry points, mezzotints, aquatints, et cetera. The third method is the chemical one: lithography, in which the principle is simply that oil and water cannot mix. Most of our contemporary full-color prints are lithographs. The stencil process is the fourth way to produce prints.

Wood engravings have a magnificent history. They de­veloped along with printing and were the only illustrative means at hand for the early printers. They are used in early Bibles and schoolbooks. Essentially, wood engraving is an art of line-rendering. In fact, during the first years of the wood­cut, they were used largely to reproduce other works and thus were largely a facsimile art. It was not until the 19th century that the technique of producing tones in the woodcut was discovered, and the line of such great engravers as Diirer and Holbein lost its importance to the newer art of shading. Cross-hatching, of course, had been widely used, particularly by Diirer's teacher, Michael Wohlgemuth.

You know the old story about making rabbit stew . . . First you catch the rabbit. To make a woodcut, you start with a piece of wood. The wood, usually cut from the tree to run with the grain, is planed smooth. The artist takes his cutting tool and removes all the sections of the envisioned print that he does not want to show on the final work. Thus, when he has finished with his wood block, he has a carved relief which stands out from the regular surface of the section of plank. (The same principle can be observed in a typewriter key. Notice that the letter which will strike an impression through your ribbon stands out in relief from the flat bed of the strik­ing portion or head of the key.) If the desired design is any­thing more than a most rudimentary one, the artist usually draws it on the surface of the wood before he goes to work with his knife or gouge. (The great difference in technique between cutting for the relief process rather than the intaglio is that, since the line to be printed will be raised, both sides must be removed separately. In the etching, the line takes in the ink, so a single cutting into the metal is sufficient.) Any kind of knife is used, depending on the preference of the artist and the requisite fineness of the desired result.

The earliest wood engravings or woodcuts were printed by rubbing, and this practice is sometimes followed even today. The artist has but to ink the surface of his wood block, place a piece of paper on the block, and rub the paper with a special tool for the purpose. However, the use of the press is far more prevalent and there is nothing much to explain if you know the simplest mechanics of printing. When using a press, the block is given its coating of ink, the paper is put on the block, and the pressman, or artist, whizzes it through his press. The finished design is thus transferred to paper.

While I have used the terms woodcuts and wood engravings as interchangeable, there are minor technical differences which a purist might not forgive me for overlooking. In the woodcut, the artist usually works against the grain of the wood. In wood engravings he takes a block of wood that has been sawn from the cross section of a tree and uses a special engraver's tool, termed a burin. Personally, I would not draw so fine a line between the two methods. The basic work method is the es­sential element.

There has been a great deal of confusion in many places between engravings and etchings, although each is an example of the intaglio process. Usually you will discover that in a line engraving the line itself is rather severe, formal, and exact, while the etched line is ordinarily freer in feeling and has more spontaneity and irregularity about it. There is much in the way each of these types of print is made which deter­mines the final character. In the case of the line engraving, the burin must be pushed through the metal. Naturally, this restricts its flexibility and freedom. In the case of etchings, a special chemical process has been perfected which eases the burden of the artist.

Here is the technique followed in producing the "pure etch­ing." The metal plate, usually copper or zinc, is treated with a thin layer of substance known as "etching ground," a prepara­tion of wax, gum, and asphaltum. The artist makes his draw­ing on this plate with a steel-point etching needle. This needle finds its way through the wax coating as far as the surface of the metal, but it does not cut into the metal itself. Then the plate is dipped into an acid bath which eats away the metal wherever it has been exposed by the etching needle. Obviously the acid does not touch that portion of the plate still covered by the ground. The plate is now removed from its acid im­mersion and all the "ground" still on its surface is removed. The plate is inked and the excess ink wiped off; only the ink which has been pushed into the etched-out lines will make an impression on the paper. Printing is again a relatively un­complicated process. Plate and paper are placed on the press and drawn between cylinders or rollers which force the ink out of the lines and onto the dampened paper.

If you rub your finger lightly over a print produced in this way, you will discover a kind of relief formed by the ink on the paper. But since each artist has his own ideas about how he wants to achieve a final effect, there are certain variations employed in etching. To offset an over-all sameness in line, with too much heaviness and weight, the artist uses the "stopping-out" method. He leaves his plate in its acid solution for biting those lines which are to appear with less depth and weight. He then removes the plate and uses a "stopping-out" varnish on the already bitten-out portions. Then the plate goes back into its bath. You can see that now the acid will affect only the parts uncovered by the varnish. To achieve a great variety in the tone of his line, the etcher may repeat this operation several times.

A rarer technique is for the artist to put his plate in the bath and draw on it with his needle, drawing each line in the order of the weight he wishes it to have in the final print. Thus he would put in the heavy lines first, the more delicate ones at the finish of his drawing on the grounded metal.

There are almost as many variations on basic etching as there are kinds of artist. The surface can be roughened with a file, or with powdered sulfur, or washed with vinegar. Sand­paper can replace the more complicated mezzotint process, or heavy salt may be powdered on the plate. The methods are many. But we shall discuss here only those which have become most popular and which you are more likely to encounter as you build your collection.

So we will start with a method, at the opposite side of the scale from etching, in which there are no lines. This is the pure mezzotint, which presents soft delineations—a banking of light and shade. In preparing a mezzotint, the artist starts with a surface that would print solid black and from this sur­face he scrapes away the tones from deep shadows to intense light.

In getting his copper plate ready for a mezzotint, the artist first goes over the surface with a "cradle"—a small spade-like tool which has a rounded, toothlike edge. This is rocked over the plate until you can see hundreds of dotted lines cross­ing each other and resulting in tiny hollows. The drawing is then sketched out on the plate. The artist goes over the plate with a scraper which takes out both hollows and burrs for the highlights, and less for the grayer areas. For the very black portions he does not touch his plate at all. Usually inks of a brown cast are used, and much skill is required in inking the plate, particularly in the wiping out. The result is a work of great softness and with evidence of the scraping in the final print. Many artists were unsatisfied because there was no line in the mezzotint, so they developed a combined form of etch­ing and mezzotint. Later etching, stippling, and work with the burin were all employed to produce unusual effects. Mezzo­tints are rarely produced today, since their principal use was the duplication of paintings in print form—a practice made obsolete by modern reproductive methods.

Aquatints are another popular medium of the printmaker and are actually a further variation of the etching process. Very small particles of a resin are put on the copper plate. The acid bath is the next step, and the acid eats away those parts of the plate where no resin has been applied. The next steps in this process are rather involved, but the results allow the use of washes and drawing to provide interesting contrasts of light against dark. On close inspection, you will find a kind of crackled look to the inked portions of the print. Usually aquatints lack the velvety look of mezzotints and do not possess the same capacity for gradations. But they do provide a greater translucence and are most effective for fine color, as in the extensive series by George Rouault which I still see offered in many galleries at prices not quite in the stratosphere.

First cousin to the mezzotint is the soft-ground etching. The "ground" is mixed with tallow to make it pliable and easy to cut. A piece of paper is placed over the ground, and the artist draws directly on this paper. At whatever points the pencil reaches, the ground will stick to the paper when the artist re­moves the paper. The plate is then subjected to the acid bath and the usual appearance is that of a soft-pencil drawing on a rough-textured paper.

Dry point is a popular process currently in vogue. Instead of using the usual engraver's burin to zip into the metal, the engraver uses a strong steel needle or the point of a diamond. As his tool forces its way into the resisting metal, a slender shaving of the excised metal raises itself along the cut line. This naturally holds onto more ink than an ordinarily en­graved line, made by the burin. You see a deeper black, with a heavier line and fuller texture. Furthermore, the tool is easier to handle than the heavier burin, which the engraver must push resolutely in making a steel engraving. Hence the dry point usually has a freedom of line and spirit absent in the more formal engraving.

Stipple engraving is a development you will not encounter too often. It is very close to etching, and the artist uses a rocker or roulette to create his design on the surface of his plate. There may be other remote or esoteric methods, too. (Indeed, it appears I have completely overlooked the mono­type!) But these do not fall into the intaglio class, since they have no excised lines.

Monotypes are made by painting in ink or pigments on a metal, glass, or plexiglass plate and running the plate through a press before the color has dried.

Now, for the third, and perhaps the finest for our purposes, form of graphic creation—lithography. Lithography can give us the most delicate off-white or the most Stygian black, the thinnest pencil or pen line, or a heavy concentration of ink. Moreover, it can give the feeling of the original artist who worked on the stone with absolute fidelity ... be he Tou­louse-Lautrec, Whistler, Gericault, or Mario Marini, contem­porary sculptor whose lithographs merit your attention.

The key to lithography is the long-known chemical fact that water and oil do not attract each other at all. Thus the artist makes a drawing directly on a lithographic stone with a grease-laden crayon or a fatty ink. The stone is then washed with a very mild acid solution. What this acid does is to make the fatty lines of the drawing even fonder of fatty substances, while the parts of the stone not drawn upon become a veritable Jack Spratt.

Water is then placed on the stone, and naturally it is re­tained only in the blank spaces. Now what happens when a stone so fondled and fatted is given a rolling of ink? Well, wherever the stone has been drawn upon, it will reach out and embrace the ink; in the other areas it will send the ink on its way. For applying crayon on the stone, the stone is first given a grain so that the crayon can take a bite. Variations are end­less. Brush strokes can be made. A covering of ink can be ap­plied and the drawing scraped out, as in a mezzotint. Spatter work is often employed. Even gumming the stone so that none of it can take ink is done. The artist can then scrape out a drawing with a tool.

Whatever actual method of drawing is used, printing is carried out in the same general way. Paper is placed on the stone and paper and stone roll through the press. Many artists prefer to do their drawing first on a "transfer paper," which is impressed on the stone by being run through a press. Today zinc and plastic plates have been found satisfactory in place of the heavier, unwieldy stone. But the general effect in either case is the same, and lithography affords one of the finest ways to enjoy original works of art at moderate prices. For we must remember that prints are truly original works of art, even if produced in a multiple form. They are done by the artist him­self, signed by the artist—and will usually gain in value through the years. Furthermore, they are one of the easier ways to own works by truly great painters, and sculptors, who find print-making very close to their regular mode of expression.

The serigraph is a method of printmaking which has been growing very quickly in favor during the past 15 years. It is used effectively by many artists and particularly by the bril­liant American painter, Ben Shahn. Many of his serigraphs were used originally as illustrations in a highly creative series of advertisements for the Columbia Broadcasting Company. The print in Fig. 5 is from this group. You may know the seri­graph method by its more humble name—silk screen. It is essentially a stencil process. Silk with a large mesh (usually silk bolting cloth) is stretched tightly on a wooden frame, and the edges secured with gummed tape. The artist now lays down a few coats of shellac on the tape, and an amber-colored sheet is placed over the drawing, affixed with thumbtacks. This sheet is a film, composed of several layers, and the top layer is cut with a stencil knife following the design under it. The actual cutting requires a very keen knife and a sensitive touch, to avoid cutting through any but the top layer. Separate stencils are cut for each desired color in any but a black-and-white serigraph.

A special thick paint is used, and a transparent base is mixed with the paint for the desired degree of transparency in the final print. This paint is poured on the screen and the artist lowers the screen, on a hinged frame, until it is directly over the paper, or board. He then runs a squeegee (you've seen them used for washing windows ... a blade of rubber in a handle) over the screen, taking the paint evenly across the sur­face. The screen is lifted, and the paper removed and racked. Obviously the paper is replaced for each color and the same procedure followed. Since the process is basically a stencil, there are many limitations, particularly in shading. But we get a thick layer of pigment through this method that is highly effective.

Because there are so many of them about and because they came into vogue in America at about the same time as baroque homes and mission furniture, Japanese prints are often given short shrift. Of course, there are available many cheap editions of Japanese prints, and many vulgar ones besides, in the sense of genuine artistry. But the Japanese made great contri­butions to the art of wood engraving, and I recommend that you keep your eye open for good Japanese prints. Here again it is a matter of buying a print because you like it; and you should find much to like in the offerings of the Far East. It must also be remembered that the Japanese print was a great molder of thought and ideas among many Western painters, notably Whistler, Van Gogh, and Mary Cassatt, as well as the foremost poster artists.

Certainly a look at a large collection of Japanese prints tells us much of the life of Japan before Perry, and the reactions of its artists to the meaning of everyday living. There is also a great indication of a love of nature and landscape, which far antedates the Western painter's interest in nature as a fit subject. The line of these wood cuts is vigorous and direct. In fact, it often approaches the symbolic, and is endowed with a calligraphic character. They are simply rendered and simply achieved. Designs are cut into the wood, working with the grain. The drawing is done on thin paper which is fastened to the block as a guide. First a "key-block" is produced. This is the complete design and will be printed in black. Then an impression on paper is made for each color. And the blocks are cut for each of these colors, in flat relief. In printing, all the blocks, and thus all the colors, are in turn impressed on the sheet of paper. "White-on-white" embossing is used for spe­cial effect by using an uncolored block. To get gradations in tone and color, the artist puts his water color on the blocks with his brush, applying stronger or lighter tones. Harunobu, Kiyonobu, Kiyonaga, Hiroshige, Toyukuni, and Kiyomasu were some of the outstanding Japanese printmakers.

It may seem that I have devoted a large share of space and attention to prints in relation to the other media I shall discuss in later pages. I have already mentioned one reason for this: the vast technical knowledge and skill that goes into a print. A second reason is that I believe you will find prints one of the easiest forms of art to buy, as far as original works of art are concerned, from the standpoints of price and availability. And please do remember that prints are not reproductions or copies, but original impressions, made by the artist himself in almost all cases. Some few printmakers there are, it is true, who have the "printing" done by others. But such artists are rare. As original art, consequently, prints are valuable and important.

While the average collector in these busy days will probably find his best source among contemporary printmakers, you should not overlook the chance to find beautiful examples of the fine work of past centuries. Look for the contemporaries of Durer and Rembrandt, whom you will find listed and discussed in such excellent books as Carl Zigrosser's Six Centuries of Fine Prints. This book is a rare treasure for those who would like to know more about prints, who can learn best by seeing them. It contains a history of printmaking and printmakers, with almost 500 actual illustrations of the medium, from earli­est woodcuts to present-day lithographs.

Other important schools are the Italian Chiaroscuro and the French Mannerist. Some reading and examining of typical prints in these categories is, of course, essential before you begin to purchase on a serious basis. "Mannerism" is simply a style of expression which was, in effect, a revolt against the ideals of the High Renaissance, and was derived from Italian artists such as Pozza, Reni, and the Carraccis. You will recog­nize the school by the exaggerated forms—stretched-out figures, posturing, extravagant gestures. The grotesque is placed with courtly elegance for highest dramatic effect.

The Italian Chiaroscurists define themselves. They arranged light and dark areas in their pictures to create the effect of modeling and to indicate light reflected from three-dimen­sional surfaces.

As for finding prints, you have many possibilities. The con­temporaries—and I would look particularly for the work of such foremost living printmakers as Peterdi, Hayter, Baskin, and Frasconi—are to be found in galleries, bookshops, and institutions like the Print Club in Philadelphia, which is actu­ally a small art museum specializing in prints. You might check The American Art Directory in your local library for a list of similar organizations. Younger printmakers well worth watching are Kaplan, Veisulas, Maitin, and Melnicoff, as well as Virduzzo, a man of almost incredible virtuosity and mastery of the medium, who works in Rome.

Bookshops, antique shops, galleries, and even the lowly roadside stand or country auction are other places where you may often make a splendid buy in old prints.

The Ways of Drawing

"In art, economy is always beauty."
Henry James

In talking about drawings, it will not be necessary to match the technical discussion and detail you found in the preceding discussion on prints. There was good reason for focusing at­tention on the processes involved in printmaking. Many of the final effects that you see in fine prints, and consequently much of the enjoyment they provide, depend on the special effects contributed by technique. The quality and character of a print are in great part determined by the artist's mastery of his medium. Printmaking is, after sculpture, the most demanding art form in the matter of complicated procedure and special­ized knowledge.

Drawing depends on far more personal values for its worth. It is in many ways a fragile and delicate way of art, for often a drawing is but a sensitive pencil line. Yet if the artist is pos­sessed of the genuine mood and feeling that must accompany the creation of any worthwhile piece of art ... be it music, painting, or poetry . . . and if he has the necessary skill be­hind his pen or pencil, drawings can be a great source of grati­fication to those who look at them or add them to their own collections. Very often they can catch a moment's elation, a quick but vital reaction to a model or still life or landscape that might be lost in a more detailed painting.

Very briefly then, I will tell you the kinds of drawings there are, and why certain media are used for special reasons and effects.

Pencil is the most easily understood form of drawing: the artist has simply picked up a pencil and sketched. One artist will do it brilliantly, with an authority of line, a firmness of definition that always stamps the drawing of quality. Quality is apparent in the finesse of handling, the free, flowing line that sets the choice drawings off in an easily recognized class. The lines of a fine drawing never squiggle. They never lose definition, or waver between thick and thin, unless the artist has a reason for modeling his line. Look at a Rembrandt draw­ing long and hard—or a Delacroix—or, in our time, a Matisse. If you can see how each line is a clear and articulate expres­sion, you have begun to see further what this matter of quality should convey. The lines do not sputter out; examined indi­vidually, they do not have a look of being pieced together. They have what a good chapter in a book, or a movement in a sonata must have—a clear beginning, a middle, and an end. I am referring, of course, to drawings with an emphasis on linear effect, rather than drawings with great amounts of shading and modeling which are virtually "paintings in pencil, charcoal, or brush."

Of course, some artists squiggled with tension aforethought. Many Van Gogh drawings seem full of convoluted, twisted lines. But he has set out to do this for reasons of his own, relevant to the mood and goal in his mind.

Charcoal pencil is a very popular form of drawing, one that allows more shading than pencil through the use of a method known by artists as rubbing. You see its results in the tone values and shading of a charcoal drawing. A charcoal pencil can be sharpened to a fine point for very fine lines, intensely black. Charcoal can also be used in stick form. In use of char­coal stick, as opposed to charcoal pencil, the artist will create heavier lines of lesser density, but he can evoke great delicacy in shading. Rubbing is also used widely in this form of char­coal drawing. I am sure you must have spent at least some hours in your youth drawing with charcoal from plaster forms in an art course at high school. Think of the messy paper . . . your grimy hands . . . and you will instantly appreciate how much skill is demanded in creating a clean, forthright charcoal drawing on a virgin sheet of snowy paper. It is no small task. Look at Corot or Watteau—originals or reproductions—for excellent examples.

Pen and ink is possibly the most popular of the many media used in drawing. The flexibility of the steel pen nib allows the artist a wide range. He can get sudden contrasts by massing a solid ink section against the white of his paper. Or he can handle an entire drawing with a free flowing line as is often done in pencil. One artist tells me that he likes pen and ink because of the greater "fluid" quality he can put into his draw­ing. He also feels that the pen provides him with a wiry, vigor­ous line he cannot match with the grayer tones of pencil. Char­coal, obviously, will not produce this tensile quality because of its inherent softness.

Ink and wash is simply a variation of pen and ink. Instead of using crosshatching, or stippling, or the filling in of areas for varying tones of shade or shadow, the artist applies his ink and water mixture with a brush. Usually you will find the outline of the drawing done with a straightforward ink line, and the grays painted in with the wash. Take a bottle of India ink and apply some with a brush to a sheet of water-color paper. Mix half ink and half water. Now try the solution with your brush, painting next to the total ink portion. Finally, take 1 part of ink to 15 parts of water and apply it to your pad. This will demonstrate the wide possibilities of light and tone made possible through ink and wash.

Brush drawings are just that. The artist takes a brush, dips it into his ink, and begins to draw. A variation is dry brush, in which almost all the ink, or wash, is first taken off the brush. The difference is obvious at a glance. Tiny interstices of the ground color (paper) show through the brush line. The effect might be compared to the use of crayon on a special paper known as ross-board . . . where minute depressions in the paper do not pick up the crayon and consequent whites appear in the line drawn. Because of the limp quality of the brush, as compared to the rigidity of a pen, or the relative firmness of pencil, a far greater degree of control must be exercised by the artist when he works in this medium.

The Flo-Master pen has become a popular instrument for artists on the contemporary scene. This is a contrivance which consists of a steel barrel to hold ink and a felt nib through which the ink flows slowly. The result is a strong, rather thick line of great vigor. Differences in tonal character are secured by varying the pressure of the felt nib against the paper. Artists describe such variations as "color," even in a black and white drawing. In Flo-Master drawings, as in brush, or dry brush, the artist often uses colored inks . . . and a lovely effect is secured by sepia-colored ink in a Flo-Master pen. The softness of the brownish ink seems to be highly compatible to the soft­ness of the line. Again, the artist may use a "palette" of colors to produce bright, dramatic drawings with the use of colored inks. Naturally he can do this with an ordinary pen as well, but the practice seems more common with the Flo-Master.

Lithograph pencil provides a medium for producing draw­ings of great vigor and intensity. The artist can produce a thick line and yet get enough mutation into his shading to give him variety. Because of the heavy nature of the pencil itself it is useful when an effect of volume is essential to the final result. The lithograph pencil has a greasy base and is often used directly on the stone by lithographers.

Pastels are colored chalks, usually rectangular in shape. They are fragile in the hand and must be lightly handled. They fleck easily and lose much of their natural tone and delicacy when they are sprayed with a fixative to protect them against smearing or handling. Yet if the chemical fixative is not ap­plied to lend some protection to the pastel drawing, the original character is almost certain to diminish as the chalk dusts off. Perhaps it is for this reason that the medium is not employed in any great measure. One of the outstanding advo­cates of pastels was Degas, who somehow managed to keep the pristine quality of his efforts alive and clean, perhaps by quickly getting them under glass. Chardin's self-portrait is another example of the effective use of pastels.

Sanguine pencil is essentially the same in its range and limitations as the ordinary graphite pencil. But it has a soft brownish-red color (sometimes described as a burnt red) so drawings executed in sanguine have a consequent softness. The cylinder of filler in the pencil is also thicker than in ordinary pencils. Sanguine has been a favorite medium for artists for hundreds of years, and you will have little difficulty in finding examples of it at galleries or art museums. Maillol, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Renoir furnish brilliant illustrations.

Conte crayon is a flat chunk of a grease-based medium that shares the popularity of the sanguine pencil with a long list of famous artists. Because it is picked up and wielded without the interference of a wood casing, and because it does not have the fragility of a charcoal stick, the artist can secure an ex­tremely personal communication with his paper . . . with results of great forthrightness and boldness.

Other highly specialized forms of drawings may be yours to see and enjoy. But the preceding pages have covered the most popular forms. Drawings are a wonderful place for the new collector to begin. As I have remarked, they are an intensely personal medium and thus you are brought in direct communi­cation with the desired expression of the artist. What is also important to the young in art, is the extremely moderate prices for drawings. Of course, those by a great master command high prices. But, in relation to oils by the same artist, you will find the cost of the drawing very moderate.

My talks with the cognoscenti of the art world lead me to a conviction that drawings might be the medium on which to put your initial buying emphasis. There are today very few paintings of the late 19th or 20th centuries waiting around to be gobbled up. And those which are gasping for new owners are sure to carry a fancy price tag. But there are still a large number of high-caliber drawings in galleries. Because the supply is relatively ample, you should be able to afford a drawing or two by a well-known artist. I was offered a lovely Mary Cassatt just three months ago for only $75. It was a small pencil drawing, expressive of all the personal style and sen­tience which have made her work world-famous. The same gallery had more than a hundred drawings of equal quality-ink, pastel, charcoal, and other variations. None of the prices was staggering. You will also find scores of artists in the earlier stages of their careers who offer drawings which are truly "pearls of little price." Theodore Rousseau, Jr., director of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, is reputed to have said that if a director of a small museum were to ask him "How do I augment my museum's collection with my modest budget and still have really good quality?" he would reply, "Buy first-rate drawings rather than second-rate paintings."

In Chapter 6, "A Galaxy of Galleries," you will see the great number of artists available in the field of drawings and the wide divergence in price—from $10 for the unrecognized artist to many thousands for a Rembrandt or a Matisse.

The World of Water Colors

"Nature sings her exquisite song to the artist alone."
J.M. Whistler

For too long a time water colors were dismissed as a medium for retired gentlemen to dabble in at the seaside, or for their female contemporaries to spend idle hours on when they tired of tatting. Indeed, almost until the time of Winslow Homer, all the water colors one saw were marked by the strait-laced touch of the academician, at best . . . and renditions were of a finicky nature that rarely attracted the collector.

Homer brought the vigor of his personality into the medium and John Marin developed an almost incredible skill to match the force of his will to expression. His water colors introduced an explosiveness and electricity that make his work in the medium highly desired by the aware.

Cezanne created a series of landscapes in water color that reveal a fragility of vision one would scarcely expect to find in an artist of such vitality and force. Pascin, Prendergast, Davies, and Demuth worked successfully in the medium, often combining water color with pen and ink or pencil. Because of the work of these pioneers, water colors have attained a rela­tively high status with collectors.

While I am not partial to paradox, one painter has de­scribed contemporary water colors effectively as "being done with controlled freedom." As a result, there cannot be any rigid rules. A common danger does exist. Some painters be­come so entranced with facility and technique that personal expression is given second place.

I am certain that you know a water color when you see one. The colors usually have a transparency not evident in oils or other paint. They are always framed under glass. And a close look will show that the artist has used his paper as a medium itself—allowing the whites to show through in areas untouched by his brush—to add a flash of brilliance or sparkle.

Another way to bring out portions of white is to scratch away the paint with a sharp blade.

There are many traditional methods employed which con­tribute to the final effect and the ultimate value of a painting, provided the essential requirements of any work of art are present.

Painters will build up one transparent wash over another, which has been allowed to dry completely, often applying several washes. Gouache, a thicker pigment, is sometimes com­bined with thinner water colors for special purposes. Charcoal, pastel, and ink are also used with water color by many artists.

You will do well to pay close attention to water colors as a possible source for your collection. They are usually moderate in cost, as the listing under "A Galaxy of Galleries" will quickly indicate. Leading contemporary artists whose scale of prices has not shot too high, despite their acceptance by museums and their growing popularity include: Robert Andrew Parker, Larry Day, Peter Paone, Jeanette Kohn, Peter Takal, Nell Blaine, and Rudy Pozatti. I also happen to think quite highly of the work of Marjorie Ruben. (But I must add the possibility of prejudice born of a relationship thicker than paint . . . she is my sister.)

Although the effect of tempera is often quite close to oil, it is occasionally a more difficult medium to handle because its binder dries very fast, requiring the painter to work quite rapidly. The commonest binder for tempera is egg yolk, and this has been a popular method since as far back as 1400 in Italy. Variations of tempera are also in use, particularly casein, which has a milk base as the emulsifying agent in place of egg yolk. Thus casein and tempera paintings are very similar in appearance, and we can handily class them here together.

Tempera, when varnished, has, as I have remarked, much resemblance to an oil painting. There are several clear dif­ferences. The artist gets fewer ranges of tones than he can secure with oil paint. The surface of the painting is even and flat without reflections. Since the paints dry very quickly, large areas of color must be put down in a series of many strokes, and layers of paint are often applied individually to create the desired result. Each layer, however, must be given time to dry. Because handling the paint thus requires an im­mediate application, we can usually find a quality of direct­ness in the finished work—a quality critics term "premier coup."

Gouaches are, in the simplest terms, thickened water colors. They are opaque pigments, usually mixed with white as the painter uses them. Miniatures are often gouaches, as were many of the early Persian and Japanese paintings. Like their close kin, water colors, they must be framed under glass. You will thus easily recognize them. Look for a very near resem­blance to water colors, a technique without brush strokes, without layers of colors in evidence, but lacking the sparkle and transparency of the actual water color. Highlights are put in with white, or a light color, while water colors usually use the paper itself for such purposes.

The Many Forms of Sculpture

"Towering genius disdains the beaten path."
Abraham Lincoln

I have already indicated that sculpture is a form of expression which requires a high degree of technical skill, as well as an even greater sense of form than the two-dimensional media.

While I do not think it would serve your particular purpose to give you a detailed account of how the varying kinds of sculpture are produced, it should be of some value to take a quick look at them. When you appreciate the great patience and technical expertness requisite to producing a work of art by a sculptor, you can see why examples of fine sculpture are relatively scarce and not to be expected at bargain prices. Of course, the appeal to your eye and "A.Q." remain prime criteria.

Wood sculpture, of course, implies at once a high degree of skill with tools. For what the artist is actually doing is carving his final image from a block of wood with a sharp tool, known as a gouge. The woods usually employed are English oak, yellow pine, limewood, and sweet chestnut. You will also find many sculptors who use the more difficult woods, such as teak and mahogany. But it is plain that, whether it be an early American cigar store Indian or a portrait in wood by Leonard Baskin, wood sculpture is simply a piece of wood carved by hand. In fact, the Latin verb sculpere, origin of the modern word sculpture, has only a single meaning: to carve. Of recent years there has been a great rebirth of wood carving among sculptors, and you will see many examples of it in galleries and in contemporary exhibits at museums, schools, etc.

Stone sculpture, like wood sculpture, is exactly what the name implies. The artist takes a block or piece of stone and hews his imagined concept out of this natural medium. How­ever, often the artist will produce a model in clay or plaster, and turn this over to what are known as "carvers," who copy the original model in the final stone form. Many people feel that this transition through a second set of hands causes a loss of intimacy—a lessening of the fire and intensity that an artist gives to his work in the creative process when he forms the work directly out of the stone with his own hands and with his own tools.

Terra cotta is still being used today by many sculptors, as it has been for thousands of years from the time of early civilizations in Egypt, India, China. You will find beautiful examples of terra cotta all the way from della Robbia to con­temporary pieces; and much of our American primitive sculp­ture, commonly known as pre-Columbian, is terra cotta: simply a mixture of clay, fired in a kiln until it is hard. You might term it unglazed ceramic.

Bronze sculpture is probably the most common and the most popular in galleries today. There are two basic methods used in casting in bronze: the sand process, and the more ancient "lost wax" process. Usually bronze sculpture has a greenish-hued patina which comes about as the copper alloy in the bronze corrodes with time and exposure. Sometimes the sculpture is given a high gloss finish by sandpapering and buffing. Or it may have the gleam and sheen of brass, such as much of the work of Brancusi and Archipenko.

Plaster casting is another process which is rather complicated, but does not take the energy, time, and effort of casting in bronze. Usually plaster casts are tinted to resemble bronze and terra cotta. Casting is also done in stone—crushed stone mixed with an adhesive which hardens, and in fiberglass, through a molding process.

Welded sculpture is becoming an extremely popular form with contemporary artists. I dislike resorting to the obvious, but I can only say that welded sculpture is exactly what the name implies: the artist builds up his total effect or figures from small pieces of metal and binds them together with a welding torch. Welded sculpture, such as the work of David Smith, is only one of the forms used by the contemporary "constructionist" sculptors. Concrete is often used together with sheet metal, while the more recent practitioners employ wire or strips of wood. In the use of such materials, the artist is grasping for an ever new dimension—embracing space in his creation of a work, and you find an ethereal quality in the output of such "constructionists" as Lippold, as opposed to the almost brutal impact of de Rivera, the German Uhlmann, or the American David Smith. More or less midground stand two other innovators: Giacometti and Henry Moore, each of whom uses stone and metal, but in completely oppos­ing fashions, to express his experience or feelings.

Slate sculpture (bas-relief on slate) is another old art form that is now having resurgent popularity. A prime example is the fine work of Frank Eliscu.

Bas-reliefs and friezes are other forms of sculpture which you will occasionally find available. But, since these are usually done on commission for architectural use, it is more likely that your choice will be restricted to the more common busts and figures you see among the output of such brilliant sculp­tors as Matisse, Degas, Renoir, Despiau, Moore, Garelli, Milles, Callery, Hepworth, Maillol, Marini, Fazzini, Viani, Epstein, Lipschutz, Daumier, the early primitives or the younger con­temporaries: Bertoia, Hare, Roczak, and Henry Mitchell.

Because of the rounded, full dimensional quality of sculp­ture, it is a highly gratifying art form, and one which you might find extremely interesting as your collecting fervor in­creases. The gallery profile which begins on page 67 of this book lists many of today's sculptors and their prices at leading art galleries in New York, Chicago, and other cities. It will also pay you well to keep a very sharp eye open in antique shops, curio stores, and auctions, where you can often turn up a fascinating older piece of sculpture. With a little bit of luck, and a great deal of diligence, you might come across an early 13th-century grotesque—one of the small copper figures of the 19th century from South India, as well as early Mexican and Spanish wood carvings which can very often be purchased for amazingly low prices.

Fragments of older pieces are worthy of your attention. They are of less value than a work in its original condition, but can be fully satisfying to your eye. If you should see an old ivory carving with a hand missing, or a section of a door with a beautiful relief, or even part of a plaque from some church or villa, think of it for your collection. By using your originality and creativity in mounting such sections or frag­ments you can easily own an object perfect in its effect, com­plete in its beauty, the balance restored by your imagination and handling.

Mobiles are a relatively new form of sculpture which were made famous by Alexander Calder. Pieces of metal, wood, or glass in varying shapes and sizes are connected by very thin lengths of strong wire or, in the case of wood mobiles, thread. Perfectly balanced, the mobile is hung from the ceiling. The movement of air in a room oscillates the various forms which compose the mobile, and the result is a pleasing combination of movement, form, and shadow on walls or ceiling. This is a highly specialized form of sculpture and is very much akin to a later development known as "stabiles." These are essen­tially mobiles, in the sense that there are pieces of wood and metal, hung from wire. But the interconnecting forms and wires are placed on a permanent base which stands on floor or table.

Finally, a suggestion on how the younger collector might well add interesting sculpture to his collection in terms of the future. Sculpture is usually rather costly, if only because of the time and materials essential in its creation . . . and I leave out any consideration of the artist's creative assets and the probable market value of his work in this particular thought. Bronzes must go to a foundry for casting, and this is a step most young artists can scarcely afford for most of their output.

So, if you find a beautiful creation in clay or plaster in the studio of a promising sculptor, try to buy it. Take it home with you and keep it carefully.

At some later time, if the form and contours still appeal to you, you can have it cast yourself at a foundry. Since the artist does not have to pay for the casting, whether it be in cast stone, metal, or fiberglass, the initial price should be on the moderate side.

And if you ever decide—because the artist's work gains in value, or because you like the figure well enough after owning it and looking at it—to have it cast, don't fail to go to the foundry when the work is done.

I was taken to an old foundry in the Trastevere section of Rome by the noted Italian sculptor, Pericle Fazzini, and the hours spent there were highly exciting. The methods used are the same as were employed a thousand years and more ago. All the steps require hand labor and you see muscles strain as the heavy forms are lifted and tilted. To see the molten metal being poured into the mold, its flashing green color flaming against the red glare of the coke, is an aesthetic ex­perience in itself.

Two other interesting forms that we can include under the name of sculpture, unless we maintain very rigid standards, are enamels and ceramics. I am sure you are fully aware of ceramics: vases, jars, pottery of various shapes, colors, and uses. Much of the pre-Columbian sculpture we see today in museums and galleries is ceramic: simply a mixture of clay, shaped by hand, and fired in a kiln. Usually ceramic objects of a functional nature, such as jars, plates, or cups, are turned on a wheel as the potter refines their outline and smooths their surfaces by holding a tool against the clay as it spins on its wheel. And in most cases such objects are glazed before going into the kiln, thereby acquiring a highly polished sur­face and color. Today many sculptors are working in this art form, producing figures, abstract studies, bas-reliefs that stand on their own as desirable works of art.

Although enamels constitute one of the very oldest forms, there are only a handful of distinguished artists working in the medium today. Plaques, murals, and more everyday objects, such as ashtrays and candy dishes, find expression in handsome, richly colored enamel-on-bronze. The base of such crea­tions is a vitreous compound known as flux, mixed with oxides of metals to produce brilliant colors. After the metal is treated with acids to receive the combination of flux and coloring agent, it is carefully washed and scrubbed to take away all traces of acid and dried in warmed sawdust.

The pulverized enamel is spread over the metal, in the desired design, just thickly enough to cover the surface. After drying in front of a furnace, it is placed on a fire-tray and goes into the furnace. The artist keeps a sharp eye on his enamel and as soon as it acquires an even luster it is removed. Unlike ceramics, this firing takes only a few minutes. A Stefan Knapp enamel is shown in a color illustration, Fig. C, and the story of this work is told in the chapter, "New Frontiers."

No discussion of sculpture would be complete without some attention to the primitive forms. There are many fine values still to be had, but opportunity is shrinking fast. Collectors are taking more interest in the archaic specimens; and gov­ernments, particularly those in the newborn nations, are attempting to keep such art within their own countries. Re­cently the Government of Nigeria purchased two early Benin bronzes from a dealer in New York. They now sit proudly in the republic's National Museum.

African sculpture is in greater abundance than the other archaic art forms. You can divide the African work into bronze, ivory and wood carvings, and clay. Usually the clay takes form in useful or decorative objects such as water jars, modeled in animal or human form.

Among the most beautiful sculpture from the great Dark Continent are the examples of Benin, created in what is now Nigeria, and the Gold Coast's Ashanti. Another desirable acquisition is the simplified, abstract form of the Gabun sculpture. The ceremonial masks turned out by the Dan tribe of the Ivory Coast are also desirable pieces for the collector.

You run a certain risk today in acquiring African sculpture —a risk common to any proven and accepted work of value: forgeries. Some of the African nations today are training students in the old traditions. While their creations are certainly not fakes, they do lack the craftsmanship and inherent regard for their traditions which mark the older figures. If the price runs high, check the sculpture with an authority.

Early America has given us the pre-Columbian sculpture now found in many important collections. Vincent Price has an outstanding array of pre-Columbian figures; and the Arens-bergs put great emphasis on the form, in putting together their prized collection. Clay is the principal medium. It was fashioned into many artifacts, from small statuettes for the tombs of great men, to rattles for babies. The early civiliza­tions on our continent also carved in volcanic rock, onyx, and jade. For the nobility and the priests they produced magnifi­cent objects in gold, including amulets, pendants, and breast­plates. Our former landlords, the American Indians, also left some handsome carved objects in the form of tomahawks and pipes.

From the South Seas come beautiful wood carvings and decorative masks, used in the magic rites that mark the lives of the Islanders. There are fetishes of every kind—to ward off evil spirits and to invoke the benevolent. Small wooden stat­uettes from Easter Island show on their faces the same mono­lithic expression of the fabled carvings on that island, those great stone figures which have baffled anthropologists for more than a hundred years.

Primitive sculpture grows more difficult to find. But some is still arriving. Don't forget that Frank Buck dealt in the field as a side line. So perhaps you will want to grab up your lion gun, line up your safari, and be off to the hunt.

Oils: A Quick Glance – A Deep Subject

You might assume that I will now devote a great many pages to telling you about oil paints. However, I will not, for two reasons. First, everyone has seen oil paintings of many kinds, in many places. They hang in banks, libraries, schools, private homes, and, of course, in galleries, far outranking any other form of art numerically, as well as in significance.

Briefly, in oil paintings oil-based pigments allow a reflection of light unavailable in the other vehicles. Some of them show the brush marks of the artist—thick blankets of paint in which the swirls of the sable's hair or the thrust and turn of the palette knife used to apply the paint are evident. In other oil paintings the color seems to flow, almost with a glazed quality, evenly and smoothly over the surface of the board or canvas. Or, again, the paint is used thinly, but the brush marks do show. Texture is a very essential element, as well as the light and the form.

Encaustics are oil paintings with a special point of difference. Wax is used as an ingredient of the paint finally applied to the panel or canvas. At one time encaustic was a common vehicle among the Greek, Roman, and Egyptian artists; in those early days the wax was heated before being mixed with pigments. Today we again find many painters employing encaustic tech­niques. These encaustic paintings have an appearance and color range that puts them somewhere between oils and tempera. It is a more difficult medium to use than oil, but there are fewer problems than fresco presents to the painter.

It is improbable that anyone will have any trouble recog­nizing an oil painting, while a mezzotint can readily be con­fused with a soft-ground etching ... a gouache hard to de­termine among a wall of pure water colors. It is for this reason, primarily, that I touch only fleetingly on oil paintings. One must form his opinion of them, on other grounds than tech­nique. And, while this is just as vital in judging the other media, oil painting is such a matter of personal style and in­dividuality—in the curve of a stroke, in the thickness of pig­ment, in the use of brush, finger, or knife, in the underpainting and the glazing—that it would literally require a library to cover the vast ground of techniques and differences.

So I commend you to your local museum ... to your port­folios ... to your Skira or Phaidon, your New York Graphic Society or Museum of Modern Art books, and to the galleries. And I urge you to live with paintings—intensively—so that you can learn at first hand before you add them to your collection. I should also like to suggest that you read two fascinating books that may add much to your knowledge, appreciation, and final selection of oil paintings: The Language of Painting by Charles Johnson and The Painter's Eye by Maurice Grosser. I also repeat my earlier recommendation: the Metropolitan Mu­seum's Seminars in Art by John Canaday, whose fascinating text is beautifully complemented by full-color reproductions. It is certainly apparent to those who have watched the recent auctions at Parke-Bernet in New York or Sotheby's in London that, barring a lucky stumble on an undiscovered canvas, you will not be doing a great deal of purchasing from among the more famous masters (although I should report that a fellow in Reading, England, recently chanced upon a beautiful Watteau in an old shop!) Today great paintings command prices in the hundreds of thousands, but there are actually hundreds of fine painters whose work is now priced moderately. Many of these will join the ranks of those whose prices reach the stars. Also, there are still available a fairly large number of artists of the early 20th century who remain "undiscovered," despite the merit of their canvases. How to seek out the talented but "non­tax-loss" purchases young collectors can afford is covered in the chapter "New Frontiers." The chapter on galleries also lists a long array of painters whose oils are today within reach at moderate prices.

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