Pictures in Focus: Three Color Aquatints from Passion by Georges Rouaul

December 5, 2021

Pictures in Focus: Three Color Aquatints from Passion by Georges Rouaul

In our year end celebration of the life and work of French Artist Georges Rouault, we are showcasing a trio of color aquatints this week from Passion, a sacred-themed print suite Rouault created for Art Impresario Ambroise Vollard in collaboration with Poet Andre Suares, published in 1939. Rouault provided 99 illustrations--17 color aquatints and 82 wood engravings cut from his designs--to accompany reflections by his friend, Suares, on events surrounding the Crucifixion. These images are not illustrations in the conventional sense but evocative pieces on the Passion, where Christ encounters the poor, the needy, pilgrims, wayfarers, and children as he passes through industrial suburbs and barren wasteland on his lonely trek to Golgotha. Cross bearing is a central theme with three color plates just added to the Rouault image gallery showing peasants weighted down with timber, perhaps, the cross beams of future crucifixions. (John Kohan)