Evening star., 1962-01-14

interesting subconscious; the
lack of such conformation is
responsible for much Of both
the strength and weakness in
contemporary American
painting.
The university set UP does
more than that. The teach
ing printmaker is forced to
examine his own processes of
production and forced, too, to
communicate those processes
to students, criticizing their
work and helping them grasp
certain learnable tech
niques. His art for him is
therefore always rooted in
craft; he is making some
thing. With many contem-
porary painters, on the other
hand, craft considerations
are simply a barrier to the
full enjoyment of the mysti-
cal experience of painting.
However exciting such mys-
ticism may be to its devotees,
its results are a poor sub
stitute for an art that has
something to say or reveal
and an art so made as to
hold physically together.
Nothing Casual
There are, of course, other
things besides the university
connection that save contem-
porary printmaking from the
Narcissus fate of so much
painting these days. 1t is
just about impossible to make
a print casually, not to know
what you're up to until you
see what you have done. The
printmaker needs to be con-
Scious every step of the way.
From this point of view the
difference between printmak-
ing and contemporary paint
ing resembles the difference
between executing a three
cushion billiard shot and
shooting fish in a barrel with
a shotgun.
Two excellent university
printmakers are now on view
at the IFA Galleries, War
rington Colescott of the Uni
versity of Wisconsin, and
J. L. Steg of Tulane.
Both work primarily in in
taglio, that convenient name
for a complex process in
volving etching, engraving,
aquatint and drypoint as well
as less conventional methods
of getting indentations into
a printing plate. In addition,
Mr.. Steg is represented by
drawings and by a pair of
large woodcuts, "The King"
and Dancing Girl" from a
triptych on John the Baptist.
The two figures are rough
hewn and effective, especial
ly the king, whose hunched
shoulders somehow sum up
the horror of frozen lust.
Italian Street Scenes
Mr.. Steg's intaglio prints
are mostly street scenes in
Italian cities, so conceived as
to be not tourist impressions
but dark views of mans home
sometime near the end of the
world. Dark shadows loom
across buildings; public
spaces are deserted; there is
the strong suggestion Of i'm
pending disaster.
Mr.. Colescott's technical
vocabulary is considerably
more complex, but it is sub
ordinated to the artists vi
sion of a reality ranging from
woman to battle. On close
inspection the surface of his
prints is very closely worked,
consisting of lines, screens
and washes of black and
color. In passages it is as
if an endleSsly moving point
were describing curves and
whorls, arcs and straig h t
lines. Out of the blackness
Of these lines there emerges
a figure, as in two prints of
Aphrodite. In both, the huge
feminine torso takes on some
thing Of the primitive power
of the Venus figurines exca-
waited in Europe. And in
both, the hulking form seems
the creation of the moving
web of lines.
Reversing his field, Mr..
Colescott does a large battle
scene with a minimum of
lines anda minimum of color,
but with these conveys the
surge Of classic cavalry, the
foot snldiar,s st1lhhnrn resist