Outward Bound (Dublin) 1855 - 1865

This color lithograph, "Outward Bound (Dublin)," was made by Erskine Nicol, a Scottish artist known for his genre paintings, probably sometime in the mid-19th century. Lithography is a printmaking process that allows for the relatively quick and cheap reproduction of images. It relies on the fact that oil and water don't mix; the design is drawn on a flat stone or metal plate with a greasy crayon, then treated so that the ink only sticks to the drawn areas. In this print, the somewhat disheveled figure is rendered with broad strokes and subtle shading, characteristic of the lithographic process. The image gains social significance when you look at the posters on the wall, advertising passage to North America. Nicol’s subject is evidently considering a passage across the Atlantic, motivated perhaps by the desperate conditions of Ireland in the wake of the Great Famine. So, in this case, the material – print – is inextricably linked to the content and wider social issues of labor, politics, and consumption that this image evokes. It reminds us that art is always a product of its time, reflecting the economic and social realities of the world in which it was made.