Plato's Cave 1959

Minna Citron made this intaglio print, titled 'Plato's Cave', using etching and engraving. The processes here are so important, especially when we consider Plato’s allegory and its concern with the difference between perception and reality. Citron uses the physical processes of marking and layering to build this image in front of us. Look closely, and you'll see the velvety blacks that define the perimeter, achieved through the careful application of aquatint. Moving toward the center, the colour shifts to a luminescent yellow, and the textural variation is striking. It’s as if she’s trying to recreate the sensation of flickering light. Consider the upper left area. Here, the image almost dissolves into abstraction. There’s a tension created, which is perfect, because Citron is dealing with ideas that don’t have straightforward visual forms. Think about the American artist Arthur Dove, who was similarly pursuing abstraction as a means to articulate the unseen. The history of art is just a bunch of people looking at each other’s work and going from there.