The Battle 1964

Frank Wright's "The Battle" is a print of some kind, it's hard to tell which exactly, but you can see the impression the printing plate has made in the paper. The horses and riders are a tangle of shapes, like an alphabet or hieroglyphs, maybe, something you can't quite make out. The cool, limited palette gives the whole scene a sense of distance. The textures work together, and your eye jumps from one texture to another. Look at how the horses in the foreground are rendered as almost pure shadow, you can see the negative space between them as a band of light. What's fascinating is how he makes this incredibly complex composition with such a simple set of marks. Reminds me a bit of Goya's looser, more abstract aquatints. Ultimately, Wright's "The Battle" embodies the idea that art is not about fixed meanings but about ongoing conversations.