Dispersal #3 1951

Margaret Hunt Lansing made this tiny print, Dispersal #3, using a printmaking block sometime in the 20th century. It's a tight composition, bursting with energy. I see a dance of marks, scratches really, making up the forms. They splay out, like the milkweed seeds, but also like fireworks, or some kind of radiant energy. There’s this great push-pull between the black background and the white lines, giving the whole thing a kind of electric charge. The texture of the block itself seems to be part of the image, adding a tactile quality. Look closely at the seed pod in the middle, how it's not quite solid, but made of layers of lines, like a ghostly echo. You could say that the piece anticipates Vija Celmins' delicate and meticulous drawings of natural forms, both artists find ways to make the ordinary, extraordinary.