Prints and Drawings Room
View by appointment- Artist
- Leon Kossoff 1926 – 2019
- Medium
- Etching on paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 452 × 559 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Presented by Peter and Liz Goulds 1999
- Reference
- P11696
Summary
This print is one of many etchings executed by Leon Kossoff in response to, and literally in the presence of, oil paintings by old masters; in this case Christ After the Flagellation Contemplated by the Christian Soul, probably 1628-9, by Diego Velazquez (1599-1660), owned by the National Gallery, London. Tate owns three prints by Kossoff after this Velazquez painting (Tate P11694-6). The artist’s ability to explore a number of separate responses while making drawings and prints from a single subject is illustrated in these etchings. This print was never published as an edition; Tate owns the only trial proof.
As its title suggests, Velazquez’ painting depicts Christ after the Flagellation. The flagellation, or scourging, of Christ was ordered by Pilate prior to the Crucifixion. Christ is shown tied by His hands to a column. The blood-stained instruments of flagellation lie before Him, in the foreground of the composition. On the right of the painting, at the bidding of the Guardian Angel, the Christian Soul, personified as a kneeling child, contemplates the suffering of Christ. Kossoff’s print is spare, linear and relatively abstract. Christ’s suffering face forms a focal point to the composition, from which a spiral can be traced comprising his body, the column to which he is tied, the Guardian Angel and the Christian Soul. The space around the three figures in indicated via rows of short straight lines. A consequence of the printing process is that the image is a reverse of Velazquez’s original. Kossoff’s print does not compete with Velazquez’s painting, nor does it seek to transcribe, copy or paraphrase it. Rather, it acknowledges the gulf that separates it from the pictorial culture of former times and reveals his desire to find points of contact with Velazquez. He has described the value of this kind of draughtsmanship as a means to building up an acquaintance with the subject of a picture made by another artist until he feels free to ‘move about in its imaginative spaces’ (Kendall, p.19).
Kossoff has made drawings after paintings by Velazquez and other old master paintings at The National Gallery for most of his life, since first visiting it in the late 1940s. Kossoff’s commitment to drawing has resulted in a decades-long dialogue with Velazquez and others. For Kossoff, drawing is rooted in close observation of, and is a way of getting closer to, the subject being drawn. It involves going beyond the observed: forming a relation with the motif at a deeper level, a process involving the growth of understanding and sympathy. He sees the act of drawing as a reciprocal process; thus making graphic transcriptions of images by older artists is his way of bonding more closely with them, exploring their mysteries and celebrating their power.
The etching plates were prepared by Ann Dowker, a London artist who later collaborated with Kossoff on biting the plates with acid, wiping them before printing, and making trial proofs. In some cases, areas of the etchings were washed with aquatint; in others, lines were emphasised by drypoint. The etchings were printed by Mark Balakjian at Studio Prints, London.
Further reading:
Richard Kendall, Drawn to Painting, London 2000
Paul Moorhouse, Leon Kossoff, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1996, pp.27-30
Leon Kossoff: Recent Paintings, exhibition catalogue, British Council, Venice 1995
Anna Bright
September 2005
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