Discover a remarkable collection of engravings, etchings and woodcuts at the Saint Louis Art Museum’s Painted Prints: The Revelation of Color. The exhibit features monochrome and colored prints that have not been seen for hundreds of years, with diverse themes–ranging from religious stories, farm life, landscapes and sea gods to virtues personified.
The exhibit features a variety of prints in all shapes and sizes–from old manuscripts, calendars, broadsheets and painted bookplates, to huge billboards. Each monochrome print is accompanied by a colored version with transparent and opaque washes, occasionally highlighted with gold and silver.
Although a small number of works belong to unidentified artists, German and Flemish printmakers, with a smattering of Dutch and Swiss, created most of the prints.
Many of them feature small details that beg closer examination. Particularly interesting is a series of brightly colored engravings depicting carts carrying the personifications of world, riches, pride, envy, war, want, humility, and peace.
German artist Hieronymus N?tzell’s Allegory of Presumptuousness features an overdressed couple being flattered by fools and demons. The deep colors and striking characters in this satirical portrait of vanity make for an attention-grabbing piece.
German artist Peter Fl?tner’s clever Playing Cards features a Renaissance deck of cards, each suit with bawdy and humorous scenes.
Swiss artist Jost Amman created a busy piece (think Where’s Waldo?) with dozens of animals and people in different cultural attire in Costumes of the World.
German printmaker Albrecht D?rer’s versatile collection of art dominates the exhibit with his thick outlines, hatchings and hand-colored prints. D?rer produced an extensive collection of religious narratives, from the Apocalypse to the passion of Christ in his Small Passion and Large Passion series.
His technical mastery of tight lines gives a lot of tension and drama in his woodcuts, such as in his engraving of Knight, Death and the Devil, which depicts the devil taunting the knight’s mortality.
The detailed hatchings in the Prodigal Son, which depicts the son kneeling in prayer amongst swine, give the woodcut piece volume and texture.
You may have to look up and tiptoe a bit for D?rer’s Triumphal Arch of Maximilian I, a 12-foot-high monument made from 192 separate woodcuts of different sizes. Rich in patterns and detail, this gigantic, grandiose woodcut served as a billboard displaying the Holy Roman Emperor’s political and personal achievements. It is a stunning, larger-than-life piece.
The colors in painted versions almost obscure the original prints’ texture–which proves that some monochrome prints are better left alone. But while the painted versions rob the original monochrome prints of their raw depth, they nevertheless add light and enable people to distinguish figures from fabrics.
There’s nothing breathtaking or awe-inspiring in Painted Prints; instead, this collection lets you appreciate the subtle charm of artworks etched on wood.
