theGraphicArts
 

Seor Cascarrabias dice:

RioBravoFineArt is publishing some web pages on the graphic arts and I want to be informed with current information if I'm going to write commentary on the subject. I had not studied the graphic arts seriously since I was in school in Spain, and so I visited Amazon.com and made a considerable purchase.

The first thing I noticed as I skimmed lightly for the first reading was that the print world is an area where mavens exhibit their jaundiced eyes as they attempt to establish themselves as being the world's leading authority. A second thorough reading proved my first assessment accurate. I give as an example, How Prints Look by William M. Ivins, Jr. He manages, by the sin of omission, to throw out a major contribution to the art world by ignoring areas of intaglio completely. Mr. Ivins, Jr. was curator of prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City for thirty years and it proves my point that authorities cannot be trusted. Of course, no more self-righteous act was ever committed than the infamous destruction of Turner drawings by John Ruskin. (Remember that Ruskin had his marriage annulled when he discovered on his wedding night that his wife had pubic hair.) Few of these books on the graphic arts agreed with one another and I look forward to eventually finding something definitive to hang my hat on.

Two of the books I purchased are on contemporary prints. As a matter of fact, one of the books is called "The Contemporary Print"; this particular book covers from Pre-Pop to Postmodern and is filled with the usual aesthetic palaver, but with some very nice illustrations of art.

The other book, The Best of Print Making, is an excellent example of not only what's wrong in the print world, but what's wrong in the art world in general, especially in the United States. This book, The Best of Printmaking, contains good prints, but very little, if any, art. I shan't go on here about the aesthetic ebb to which the colleges and universities have altered what's expected from our artists, but I will state that here is a prime example of high skill and nothing to say. When artists have nothing to say they meander and The Best of Printmaking is a book of meandering.

It's just a damn shame: something otta be done.

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