Distance Provincetown
- Lithograph
-
17 x 9 in
(43.18 x 22.86 cm)
- Louis Lozowick
"The great danger of extreme preoccupation with formalism is that it is likely to degenerate into decoration and ornamentation; it has indeed done so in many cases, though more in painting than in graphic art (and more in Europe than in America). Born of a healthy contemporary impulse formalism gradually drifted away from close contact with life into experiment and even distortion for the sake of distortion...
Abstraction has always been only a means. There is no theoretic reason why the technical gains of abstraction cannot be used in the representation of an actual scene. The fact that a drawing resembles in certain respects a concrete object does not necessarily mean that it cannot at the same time be also a fine work of art...
With the new tendency (which is common to graphic no less than to other arts) there is again the danger of being so absorbed in representation as to fall into photographic actualism. Against this, however, the experience of a quarter of a century stands guard...
If the graphic artist can avoid the danger of ornamental abstraction on the one hand and photographic realism on the other, if he can apply the force of the new technical equipment to the wealth of new themes, no prospect for what he might accomplish would be too hopeful."
Louis Lozowick, "Lithography: Abstraction and Realism" Space. Volume 1 (March) 1930 - Reprinted in exhibition catalogue: "Abstraction and Realism: 1923 - 1943: Paintings, Drawings, and Lithographs of Louis Lozowick," March 14 - April 18, 1971, Robert Hull Fleming Museum, The University of Vermont, Burlington 1971
- Edition: 8/15
- Created: 1968
- Collections: Permanent Collection