From sketch to press: On printmaking

64888

Rarely we are allowed to see and reconstruct the creative process behind a print. Let's face it, it is almost impossible to picture in our mind the amount of work an artist invested in turning his idea into something visible also to other people. The long and complex process from the sketch to the press is very well documented in a series of items in our collection.

Of the print Deathmask with sunflower and dagger (64887 and 64888) by Laurent Verwey van Udenhout (1884-1913) Antiquariaat Arine van der Steur has the very original sketch, drawn on the verso of cardboard, the preparatory drawing, on its recto, and three impressions of the finished plate in different states.

64887 verso

In the sketch, Verwey van Udenhout clearly studied the space of the representation, drawing a border which is slightly smaller than the actual plate.
Here, the artists designed the shadows that the various objects would have to project on the background when invested by a light coming from the right (in the sketch, from the left in the print).
In particular, he made sure that the dagger, the sunflowers with split stem and the death mask would emerge from the background with the help of their dark cast shadows.

64887 recto

For the preparatory drawing, the artist used the plate to trace, all around it, the actual external margins including the final composition. Now the focus is on all the chromatic values. The drawing looks very similar to the final result, in reverse, in terms of dark and lit areas. Visible are the most essential lines, defining the shapes of the three objects.

Finally the three states of the etching.
The first state in our collection looks like a painting. Before pressing the etching, the artist probably brushed the surface of the plate with acid to obtain a soft brownish tone all over the impression. Such a tonal veil would be visible only for very few impressions. The lines are still thin and didascalic, whereas the other prints show a progressive flattening of the plate.
Likely Verwey van Udenhout retouched the grooves with dry point, to make them more visible once pressed. In later impression, the initial tone is completely vanished.
The ultimate effect is rather harsh, the lines are very dark and broad, and contribute to give the idea of a bas-relief rather than a work on paper.

left to right: early state and other proof in 64887 and 64888

The same creative process is also visible in another couple of sketch-etching by the same artist (64976). Here, though, the composition is somewhat dissimilar between the original drawing and the final result: the man with a moustache is sitting, but in another position and with a different gaze in the eyes.  The focus of the artist is always the facial expression, rendered with the high printing quality the young Verwey van Udenhout had achieved.

64976

Anna Bianco

When an intern stumbles onto Sappho

Come to me now thus, Goddess, and release me
From distress and pain; and all my distracted
Heart would seek, do thou, once again fulfilling,
            Still be my ally!

-        From “Ode to Aphrodite” by Sappho, translated by John Myers O’Hara

When I first started my internship at ‘Antiquariaat van der Steur’ I was happy to discover that they had a large collection of Classical Literature.

These books are still such an important part of today’s literature, so I was glad to examine these books. The first few works I focused on were already very interesting: the first one happened to be a fable book with beautiful binding, but my eye was caught by book. At first sight, it was not the most special book on the shelves at ‘Van der Steur’, but this work contained some overwhelming poems. These poems are written by Sappho, one of my favourite authors in Classical Literature and as it appeared also one of the favorite authors of Arine. This surprised me, because her name is not well known in general. 

  

Sappho was a Greek woman of whom's life not much is known for certain. Everything we know is from her own poetry, but this is not necessarily biographical. What we do know though is that she was from the island of Lesbos and was probably born into an aristocratic family. Today, most of her poetry is lost. Only fragments remain on papyrus, or as quotations in other ancient works. Sometimes a whole poem has survived and sometimes as little as a single word. The oldest surviving fragment of Sappho is the Tithonus poem, found in 1922. The only poem that has survived completely is Ode to Aphrodite. It was preserved in ‘Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ On Composition’, where the writer quoted the full text of the poem as an example of “smooth” or “polished” writing. The poem was also partially preserved on a second century papyrus roll, discovered at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. 

Sappho’s poetry is known for its clear language, simple thoughts and use of direct quotation. She also uses unexpected word-play quite often. An example from fragment 96: 

“Now she stands out among Lydian women as after sunset the rose-fingered moon exceeds all stars”

This is a variation of the Homeric epithet “rosy-fingered Dawn.” 

In antiquity Sappho’s poetry was highly admired and she was referred to as the “tenth Muse”. She influenced other ancient poets, such as Catullus and Ovid, who wrote a poem as a letter from Sappho to her supposed love Phaon. Even in modern literature Sappho is of great influence for other poet. For example Housman and Tennyson, who re-wrote the Tithonus poem of Sappho. 

In the 20^th century however, Sappho was not known for only her poetry, but she became a symbol of homosexuality, although her sexuality is still debated. She wrote a lot of poems about unrequited love for other women, who she taught at school, but she also wrote her poems for men. There are still a lot of controversies around her life. Her poetry though is written so thoughtfully and with such grace, that her sexuality is of minor detail. This feeling of unrequited love is universal and I believe that this is the main reason why so many people are influenced and touched by her poetry.

'Les Poesies d'Anacreon et de Sappho' at ‘Van der Steur’ has two parallel columns: one for Greek and one for the early French translation by Anne Dacier. The French translation of her poems are very delicate.

Anne Dacier was not an experienced translator when she translated this work, but after this work she translated quite a few Greek and Latin texts, including the Illiad and Odyssey by Homer, Greek tragedies, Latin comedies and the works of Horatius, Callimachus and Aristophanes. 

This book initiated a stellar career for Anne Dacier. 

This book has a special place in our collection because it has been of great importance for Classical Literature, but also of great importance for Anne Dacier and it is one of the few versions that was actually printed in Greek. This book will always be special.

Sterre van der Sijde