Moonrise 1955

Stow Wengenroth created this lithograph called *Moonrise*. Look at the way he’s built up these dark, velvety blacks to describe a full moon casting its light over an inky pond, lighting the tops of the reeds and trees. I feel for Wengenroth and the labor he put into this work, the careful build-up of tone to conjure a moonlit landscape! The way the light falls feels so considered, like he’s really responding to the feeling of moonlight. The surface is so smooth, almost like a photograph. It’s like he's trying to capture a fleeting moment, a specific quality of light, like a 19th-century landscape painter, but with this modern printmaking technique. It makes me think about the history of landscape art, and how each artist builds on what came before, experimenting with new tools to capture the world around them.