Strange Lands

         Today we’re back to block printing, and I’ve got a little collection of landscapes that bring some artistic license to the view.

        First is a cityscape by Luigi Spacal that positively revels in geometry.  There are suggestions of windows and possibly girders or overhead rails, but for the most part this could be a purely abstract collection of patterns - but then there’s a bicycle right there on the street (if that’s the street), in front of the eyeglasses of an optometrist’s shop (if that’s an optometrists’s shop).  I find the whole thing delightfully quirky and surprisingly cheerful.

        The second piece by Betty Sieler is, by contrast, serene and peaceful: a forest on a misty day.  The interesting thing about this one is that it’s amazing how clearly it represents tree trunks, because when you look closely it’s really just seemingly rough and random vertical lines.  The two colors of grey make it even more of a mushy mess, and yet simultaneously give it even more realistic depth.  This kind of art often seems like magic to me, when rough and simple carving coheres into a perfect evocation of a precise scene.

        The final piece, by Madeleine Flaschner, is even more abstract.  In fact, perhaps it isn’t even meant to be a landscape at all.  It’s simply titled “Composition,” so it could actually be purely abstract.  And yet my pattern-seeking eyes see a landscape here: sky at the top, high cliffs in the distance, perhaps water in the foreground, maybe some trees or plants at the sides…  It’s something of a sampler of different patterns and textures, and whatever it is, it’s dramatic!

        Three very different styles, three very different landscapes, and yet each of these three artists manages to evoke a scene that is simultaneously suggestive of the world and imaginative in strange and magical ways.  Which is your favorite?

[Pictures: City in the Night, woodcut by Luigi Spacal, 19702 (Image from 1stDibs);

Woodlands, linocut by Betty Sieler, 1962 (Image from Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art);

Composition, woodcut by Madeleine Flaschner, late 20th century (Image from 1stDibs).]