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

Benton Spruance made this lithograph called ‘Great Chargers of Gold Held Up by the Handmaidens Smote the Weariness of the Sands’ using grease and acid on a big slab of limestone. It's intense, right? I see the artist digging in, scraping and hatching, to produce this shadowy world of mythological characters. The dark ink feels rich and heavy, like he was wrestling with the stone to get these figures to emerge. I bet he was thinking about the old masters when he made this, maybe even Goya’s dark visions, but he's also doing his own thing. It's like he's conjuring a dream, full of symbols that are both familiar and strange. He’s got a strong graphic style with clear contrasts, which is his signature. You see the way he's built up the tones, layer upon layer? It's like he's building a world, brick by brick, right in front of us. I wonder what those handmaidens are carrying, and what weariness they’re smiting? It's all so mysterious and evocative. I think artists like Spruance remind us that art isn't just about what we see, but what we feel.