A Wind Is Rising and the Rivers Flow 1945

Benton Spruance created this lithograph, ‘A Wind Is Rising and the Rivers Flow,’ using shades of gray and beige, with touches of warm reds and blues. The image feels heavy, doesn’t it? Spruance lays down solid blocks of color and then etches his design into it. You can almost see him wrestling with the stone. I imagine he began with the weight of his theme, the weight of the human body, and then chiseled away to find the light within it. I think of lithography as drawing with grease on stone, so you get these velvety darks that can feel both soft and solid at the same time. Spruance’s forms aren’t exactly figurative but they aren’t abstract either. Like other artists—such as Kathe Kollwitz—Spruance uses the graphic language of printmaking to create a dialogue between representation and something more elemental. Painters are always looking at each other’s work, even across generations. And that’s how we keep the conversation going.