The Patrician Women on Their Terraces 1960

Benton Spruance created this lithograph, "The Patrician Women on Their Terraces," using black ink to conjure these ghostly, floating figures. You can almost feel Spruance coaxing these forms out of the stone, wiping away and re-etching until these lounging women come into focus. I wonder what Spruance was thinking as he worked on this piece? Maybe he saw a fresco in Pompeii, or maybe he was just imagining some kind of eternal feminine. I'm struck by the contrast between the solidity of the figures and the ephemeral quality of the medium. The surface is grainy and textured, which gives a sense of history and decay to the work. The figures on their terraces almost seem to be dissolving back into the stone. Painters and printmakers have always riffed off each other's work, it's a long conversation across time. Spruance is chatting here with the ancient world, isn't he? He's reminding us that art is not about fixed meanings but about the ongoing process of looking and thinking.