The Cliffs (Primary Title)
Joseph Pennell, American, 1857 - 1926 (Artist)
In The City, an eye looms over an urban scene that is void of linear perspective and believable space-making. Descending from the eye is a triangular spray of light, which overlaps other diagonals in a depiction that seems more mechanical than naturalistic. In keeping with the work of several modernist printmakers, the artist, Hans Jelinek, extends his monochromatic, architectural treatment of buildings to the trees, thus giving a prefabricated, industrial appearance to nature as well. As with works by so many Precisionist artists, the print’s hard edges and unmodulated contours minimize the role of the human hand and call attention to the engraving as an object made by mechanical means.
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