Great Chargers of Gold Held Up by the Handmaidens Smote the Weariness of the Sands 1957

Benton Spruance made this lithograph, *Great Chargers of Gold Held Up by the Handmaidens Smote the Weariness of the Sands*, and it feels like a dream he had after reading too much T.S. Eliot. The way he’s built up these velvety blacks by layering marks, like a feverish charcoal drawing, tells me he didn’t want to leave anything out. Look at the figure on the right, see how Spruance uses these heavy, scratchy marks to give a sense of both presence and erasure? The hand seems to be pointing, or maybe it’s reaching out, hovering right above the rectangle that’s filled with these looping lines. It’s like he’s trying to grab something in the ether. You can feel the artist searching for something, some truth, in the process of making the image. This work is stylistically akin to artists like Kathe Kollwitz, who similarly use heavy lines and shadow to depict psychological states. It's a reminder that art is a conversation, an ongoing attempt to make sense of the world.