The lighter parts of this print are the places where the artist burnished the plate (so that ink could not adhere), but he also wiped the plate selectively, leaving a film of ink in some areas to suggest a transition from dark to light.
Description
During the Great Depression, Dox Thrash worked in the Federal Art Project’s Fine Print Workshop in Philadelphia, where he developed an innovative printmaking technique that utilized the industrial material, carborundum, to roughen plates that were then burnished, much like mezzotint. The technique created dramatic effects of dark to light, as evident here. Thrash’s subject matter was almost exclusively memories of his childhood in the rural south and his community in Philadelphia, and he often portrayed Black spiritualism or religious practices. Here, a group of people gesture and react to the parting of clouds and rays of light above. In the arrangement of figures and gestures, Thrash referred to European models from the Renaissance such as images of mourners at Christ’s crucifixion. A drawing Thrash made as a final preparatory design for the print is also in the CMA’s collection (2023.195.2).
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