Word: woodcut
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...medieval Byzantine frescoes. There was a room of powerful Orozco oils from Mexico, a retrospective of Jacques Villon from France. The Soviet Union sent its customary assortment of Lenin portraits and statues of muscled workers. Cuba followed suit with some bearded Fidelistas and a ten-foot woodcut showing Uncle Sam, abetted by imperialist lackeys from the Associated Press and the United Press, stamping on the "bleeding Cuban people." Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art picked the U.S. entries, which included 34 abstractions by Robert Motherwell, two figurative paintings by Richard Diebenkorn, a couple of Leon Golub monsters, engravings...
...Last Word. Precise standards of measurement are a present-day perplexity. On a laboratory wall in the U.S. Bureau of Standards hangs a blow-up of a 16th century woodcut showing 16 men lined up heel to toe to define the rute, an old German measure of length related to the English rod. That was fine for the 1500s. But since then, each advance in technology has required better measurements. The standard meter bar, adopted by 28 nations, including the U.S.. in 1875, was considered the last word. Used with elaborate comparing devices, it could measure with an accuracy...
...either aspect, however, the artist nearly always proves himself master of his media. He imparts to his line the freedom one would expect of an ink drawing, while still retaining that rugged quality essential to a woodcut. His style, usually a decorative realism, varies with the mood and subject matter; but in almost every print Amen succeeds in evoking his desired effect, whether it be that of power or of mere cuteness...
Baskin is represented with only one print, a powerful woodcut entitled Death of a Laureate. A hideous, paunchy Caesar seems to gore himself with his own hand. The intricate details that contrast so effectively with the forceful large areas of pure black testify once more to the skill of this master craftsman of American art. More of his work should have been exhibited...
Munakata does not always maintain the virtuoso standards of this religious series. Lapses occur when he adds colored ink to the black and white woodcut. Munakata, it seems, is not in any way as gifted a colorist as he is a draftsman. His heavy, almost garish, coloring emphasizes how far he has turned from the nice distinctions of tone and shade in eighteenth and nineteenth century Japanese prints. This very simple style, more Western than Oriental, mainly produces naive results; the childish, pseudo-folk art atmosphere of Stones in Water and Hawk Woman is most disturbing. However, the best color...