VIEW IN MY ROOM
United States
Printmaking, Linocuts on Paper
Size: 8.5 W x 10 H x 0.1 D in
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The Poet: Arald dismounts from his charger and kneeling places the lifeless body of Maria at the Seer's feet. Arald: To you, O timeless Seer, across the world I ride To give me back the one that envious death does hide, And all my days for you I will unceasing pray. That's the beginning of Nicolae Bretan's beautiful opera "Arald." The warrior has heard that this Seer, and old pagan priest "who death forgot," was able to perform miracles, so he has brought the dead body of his beloved Maria, killed in battle, to be resurrected. The Seer gives Arald a potion (poison) which turns him into a ghost. Thus, as the sun rises, the lovers are united in death. After he has pulled off this trick, the Seer laments his own immortality: "Here I sit with crutch in hand, priest of an old creed. For ages shall I sit thus, by death forgot indeed..." Overhead two ravens soar - one white and one black. So this image came to me out of music. It's sort of a Germanic version of the Orpheus and Eurydice story, but I set the scene under the Broadway Bridge, looking across the Arkansas River toward North Little Rock. The Seer's hat must have come from a self-portrait I did in 1988 called "Man in a Paper Hat." (See additional images.) I did two paintings of this scene in 1997, this print in 2000, and the another larger painting two years later. In that last painting Arald has drunk the magic drink and is fading away. (You can watch the development of that painting and listen to the end of the opera at www.warrencriswell.com/arald-opera%26painting.html) But in this print Arald has just arrived under the bridge and is lowering Maria to the ground. It's one of the first generation of the "Criswell Linocut," when I was experimenting with colors and highlights. This is a 2-color linocut, image 7 x 5 inches, sheet 10 x 8.5 inches. There are a few left in the edition. I can ship them unmounted or matted in a white or off-white mat, 11.5 x 9.5 inches. The Criswell Linocut I began these experiments with linoleum back in 1999. Although these prints may resemble etchings, drypoints, lithographs or some strange hybrid, they are true relief prints, printed in two or more colors from linoleum blocks. I didn't invent this technique - Picasso and his printer Arnera did - but I've adapted it to my own purposes and, since nobody else in the world is doing it as far as I know, I'm calling it "The Criswell Linocut." The two most important things about this technique is that (1) I cut the designs with a drypoint needle and (2) that I print the dark color first and the light color second. This enables me to draw my image directly on the key block, just as I would draw with a pen on paper, rather than cut away everything BUT the image as in traditional relief printmaking. For more info about this, checkout www.warrencriswell.com/linocuts.html.
Original Created:2000
Subjects:Mortality
Materials:Paper
Styles:FigurativeFine ArtSurrealism
Mediums:Linocuts
Printmaking:Linocuts on Paper
Artist Produced Limited Edition of:1
Size:8.5 W x 10 H x 0.1 D in
Frame:Not Framed
Ready to Hang:Not applicable
Packaging:Ships in a Box
Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.
Handling:Ships in a box. Artists are responsible for packaging and adhering to Saatchi Art’s packaging guidelines.
Ships From:United States.
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United States
"I was a loner as a kid, an only child, the kind that grow up to be terrorists, bank robbers or artists. I wasn't interested in terror but tried robbery, stole a watch in the third grade but got caught and took up art. They haven't caught me at that yet." (Warren Criswell) --- “I am saying that a journey is called that because you cannot know what you will discover on the journey, what you will do, what you will find, or what you find will do to you.” (James Baldwin) --- Warren Criswell was born in West Palm Beach, Florida in 1936 and has lived in Arkansas with his wife Janet since their bus broke down there in 1978. Primarily a self-taught painter, Criswell is also a printmaker, sculptor and animator. He has had 41 solo exhibitions in the United States and one in Taiwan. His work has been included in 77 group exhibitions in New York, Atlanta, Washington DC, Arkansas, Virginia, North Carolina, Germany and Taiwan, and is represented in the permanent collections of many institutions, including: The Arkansas Arts Center; the McKissick Museum of the University of South Carolina; The Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA; Historic Arkansas Museum, Little Rock, AR; the University of Arkansas at Little Rock; Capital Arts Center, Taipei, China; the University of Central Arkansas; Hendrix College; the Center for Arts & Science of SE Arkansas; and the Central Arkansas Library System, as well as in private and corporate collections in the United States, Europe and Asia. --- In 2021 he won the Arksnsas Governor's Award for Individual artist. In 1996 he was awarded a fellowship grant for painting and works on paper by the Mid-America Arts Alliance and the National Endowment for the Arts, and in 2003 an Individual Artist Fellowship Grant for painting and drawing by the Arkansas Arts Council. Warren Criswell is currently represented by M2 Gallery in Little Rock and Saatchi Art.
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