Coney Island: Winter 1942

Bernard Rosenquit made this woodcut, Coney Island: Winter, date unknown, with stark black lines on a light ground. It’s interesting how the printmaking process lends itself to a kind of bold simplification; each mark feels deliberate. There’s a strong sense of texture here, even though it’s a flat image. The lines create patterns, like the crisscrossing that suggests a fence, or the radiating spokes of the Ferris wheel. Look at how the artist uses the negative space, that off-white ground, to define shapes and create a sense of depth. It’s like a puzzle where the missing pieces are just as important as the ones that are there. That little white rectangle in the middle distance, for example, pops out, suggesting a building or structure and giving the eye a place to rest. Rosenquit's simplified forms remind me of some of the early American modernists like Stuart Davis. Both artists find ways to flatten and abstract urban landscapes, turning them into dynamic arrangements of shape and line. What do you see?