The Unfinished Print

by Peter W. Parshall, Stacey Sell, Judity Brodie

The question of 'finish' in the artistic endeavour has been regarded with increasing fascination since the Renaissance. In the graphic arts this question has involved what it means to achieve aesthetic resolution in printmaking. The Unfinished Print investigates for the first time the history of finish and unfinish in printmaking from the fifteenth to the early twentieth century.

112 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[John Lunger · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book in anticipation for my meeting with Stacey Sell at the National Gallery of Art as I was curious get a glimpse into her thought process of viewing art. The topic of the book was secondary to me.

This is a subject that I have not been that drawn to in my studies of art thus far – I gathered there are three main questions that are being explored:

1. What constitutes a unique edition of a work?
2. What differentiates an unfinished work from a finished work?
3. How do we judge an unfinished work of art?

Even now part of me still rolls my eyes at these questions, as I believe the conversation around these is mostly conjecture and semantic games, but I will focus on the first question for this review. One of the large reasons for my lack of concern for this question is due to how artists in the past have taken advantage of this. The clearest example of this is Rembrandt. Rembrandt was accused of exploiting this clientele due to his alleged rapaciousness, which was similar in degree to that of Silas Marner. As noted by Arnold Houbraken, the habit of Rembrandt ‘reworking’ his etchings:

"brought him great fame and no less financial advantage: especially the trick of minor change, or the small and slight additions, which he brought into his prints, whereby he could sell them once again. Truly the desire at the time was so great, that people would not be considered true connoisseurs if they did not have the little Juno with and without the crown, the small Joseph with the white face and the brown face and other such things. Yes, the Woman by the Stove, though one of his least prints, each had to have with and without the white cap, and with and without the stove key.”

Houbraken laughed as Rembrandt’s practice, as Rembrandt encouraged it for economic benefit, similarly to today, as many accuse Andy Warhol of doing just that with his cans of soup.
But there is a counterpoint to this, that the essays in the book do an upstanding job of illuminating. One of the other works that are provided as examples is that of Piranesi. Known for his architectural focus, his design changes from one edition to another are more pronounced and easier to identify, and one can therefore more successfully argue, that a substantial change was made, which constitutes a new piece of art. I am more sympathetic to the argument when looking at these clear examples of Piranesi’s additions. Due to this concession, however, my earlier argument seems to break down a bit, as versioning therefore devolves into an argument whether the changes are significant or superfluous.

An additional point was brought up when I spoke with Stacey Sell on my concerns. She stated that etchings are not a simple task, like drawing, but are quite difficult due to the amount of effort expelled throughout the process (i.e., pressing into copper takes a certain amount of force to leave an impression). This line of reasoning makes some sense, which might be even more clearly communicated with the example of creating marble sculptures. A sculptor could toil for months against marble, in order to create a different version where only the hand placement could slightly be changed in order for there to be stronger general effect of the whole. While I expressed agreement at the time, that this indeed tilted the scale of uniqueness in my view, after chewing on this I am once again unsure. I am not convinced the amount of a physical exertion used in a particular medium of art legitimizes rather insignificant changes. And that word – insignificant – is probably the crux of the argument. Is the change significant or not? While there is a physical aspect of art, it is the perspective of the creative mechanism at work that should be primarily looked at. To me, these things ultimately boil down to intention of the artist, which cannot be definitely known. Regardless, these were surprisingly thought-provoking essays nonetheless.

Quotes/Excerpts:
- Piranesi regularly came to the place at an unresolved stage in his thinking. A drawing on paper was preliminary to the critical art of reinventing with the etching needle, and preparing the plate with ink became yet another leavening of what might be realized through the press. As was true of Rembrandt, he resisted uniformity even at the point of printing, and Piranesi also often returned to his plates many years later to revise them for further editions.
- Before the second issue [of the series Carceri (prisons)] Piranesi heavily reworked many of the plates, often adding additional architectural elements, deepening and multiplying the etched lines, burnishing out areas, and dabbing ink on the plate before printing, inventions that both complicate and elucidate their structures. This seems at first a despairing reinvention of an already bewildering architectural world, a harbinger of romantic sublimity. However, a more detached analysis suggests that Piranesi actually showed up, clarified, and concretized his initial conceptions.
- Art historians have speculated that Rembrandt intended all his study sheets for publication in a drawing book.
- Giorgio Vasari was among the most important Italian writers to discuss the aesthetic value of the unfinished work, nothing that its proximity to the artist’s original ideas gave it a force and liveliness often lost through rework and refinement. He associated the incomplete work with a burst of creativity that seized an artist, accentuating the connection of the sketch to the artist’s intellectual activity by comparing the painter’s inspiration with that of the poet.

[Maria Catarina · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first essay in the book (written by Peter Parshall) is very rich in its associations and examples. The text explores the range of printmaking practice and it explains how the procedures implied in the intaglio techniques might suggest a distinct way of constructing (and deconstructing) an image. The subject of the 'non finito' and of the fragment in printmaking adds to the discussion of these issues in a broader sense.
The other two essays also tackle two very exquisite cases of study with useful and important information. Even so, they were not so exciting to read.