Anabasis 1957

Benton Spruance made this print, Anabasis, with lithographic crayon, tusche washes, and scraper. Can you imagine the dance of the hand to make this? The way the artist might build the image through trial, error, and intuition? This ethereal, almost dreamlike image is rendered in a creamy yellow ink. It’s almost as if the artist is trying to reconstruct some lost memory. Look at the knight on horseback, spear raised. What do you think he’s thinking about? Is he anxious? Determined? Spruance created other images of knights, so it looks like he was interested in the archetypal narratives of heroism and adventure. I wonder if he was looking at Arthurian legends? Maybe he was also inspired by the work of other artists of his generation, who sought to use art to express inner psychological states. Artists are always in conversation, aren’t they? Ultimately, this piece is an open-ended question, a moment frozen in amber. Maybe the meaning is not fixed, but instead emerges in each viewer's mind.