Shark and Sonar 1952

Benton Spruance made this lithograph, Shark and Sonar, using muted greens and reds to build a tense picture. He's not trying to trick us into thinking this is a real shark, he's inviting us to think about the image as something constructed. I love the way Spruance uses texture, the graininess makes the image shimmer, like looking underwater, or like it's a half-remembered dream. The shark is a strange, geometric shape, pieced together like a puzzle. It reminds me of Léger, but with a touch of something darker, more ominous. The diagonal lines shoot right through the shark’s body. It makes the whole image feel unstable, like something about to shatter. It’s like Spruance is saying that even the scariest things are just made of lines and colors, and maybe, just maybe, we can rearrange them into something else.