The Ninth Hour 1978

Clarence Holbrook Carter made this print, The Ninth Hour, and it’s a striking image, almost brutally so, using strong blocks of color to deliver a message. The material aspect of this print, its flatness, is what really strikes me. The black cross is so absolute against the red ground. You can almost feel the pressure applied to create such a dense, unwavering surface. The spears seem to emerge from the ground as though they are growing up around the crosses, and their linear quality adds to the sense of claustrophobia in the image. There is an eclipse depicted at the top of the image. What does it mean? Darkness descends but there is also an element of light? The image reminds me a little of some of Ad Reinhardt’s black paintings from the 1960s, where form and content merge into a singular, meditative experience, using minimal means to convey a sense of the sublime. Of course, in this image there is nothing minimal about the intent of the message.