Personal Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Georges Rouault
French; 20th-century
Normal, IL: University Galleries of Illinois State University
53%
Il Serait Si Doux D'Aimer! (from the portfolio Miserere). 1923. Photogravure, aquatint, drypoint, and copper engraving
The bold blend of sorts of mark and surface (a result of Rouault's mixed printmaking techniques) is nearly enough to make up for this print's lack of sufficient composition. In fact, when "abstract" printmakerly elements come in to provide some bones — see the smoke-white arc with some hatching and strokes that moves down the right side of the image — they fare much better as structural features than, say, that flabby stretch of arm or an over-outlined breast. Such representational elements as these tend to get lost in the maelstrom of superficial effects, which themselves almost seem stymied by the simple fact that this is a picture of something. Still, in pointing towards a printmaker like Dubuffet, there's a partial or proleptic value to Rouault’s technique. (2024)