LEONARD BASKIN
MONUMENTAL WOODCUTS 1952-1963
On view at the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine
From September 21 to December 1, 2002

By Laurie Meunier Graves

“Only in the woodcut can vast areas of black be…splendid. No matter how wide the span the black remains pure and terrible.”
—Leonard Baskin

“Pure and terrible” are apt descriptions of a display of Mr. Baskin’s work at the Portland Museum of Art. Dark might be another way to describe it. The exhibit includes giant woodcuts of the human form and smaller woodcuts of prophets from the Old Testament. There are also sculptures and prints of birds and birdmen.

The giant woodcuts all have a flayed, tattered look. Hydrogen Man is huge and skeletal. Man of Peace is behind barbed wire and is holding a dead chicken. Is this what happens to those who are not warriors? Or, is the title ironic? Everyman is stretched like Christ on the cross. His head is tipped back, his eyes are closed, and his mouth is a black hole.

Overall, there is a feeling of grief and suffering. Even The Poet Laureate does not look happy. His face is a series of slashes.

The prophets, done in smaller “head shots,” fare no better. Moses has horns, Jeremiah has dripping eyes, and Isaac and Abraham are depicted as having two faces on the same head.

Then there are the prints of the birds and the birdmen. Most people have an affinity with birds, but Mr. Baskin seems to have viewed them with horror. In their own way, they are as harsh and as grotesque as the human figures.

The sculptures mirror the subject matter of the prints, but somehow they are rounder, softer, less harsh. Oddly enough, they lose something by being so soft, and what they lose is the power that the prints have.

This is a disturbing exhibit and a depressing view of human nature, but it is certainly worth seeing. After all that has happened in the twentieth century, we can only concur with the writer and historian Jacques Barzun when he writes, “We play fast and loose with the words human and inhuman, flattering ourselves by making human only the good things in our makeup or simply what we approve. The historian cannot subscribe to this policy, knowing as he does that cruelty, murder, and massacre are among the characteristic human acts.”

Mr. Baskin seems to have known this, too, and the prints in this exhibit are a reflection of that knowledge.

5 1/2" x 5" 2008 Wolf Moon Calendar just $10.00 each
More Info

More Info

© Wolf Moon Press 2002-2008 all rights reserved.

Submission Guidelines