High Water On The Ohio 1939

Douglas Warner Gorsline’s ‘High Water On The Ohio’ is an etching, a printmaking process in which a metal plate is coated with wax, the design is scratched into the wax, and then the plate is immersed in acid which bites into the exposed metal. You can see the marks of this process in the fine, precise lines that define the scene, giving it a tactile, almost gritty feel. The image captures the impact of flooding, with water inundating buildings and infrastructure, and the result of a natural event on a human-built environment. The effect is created by the thousands of tiny actions that were required to create it: each line on the plate, and each impression of the print. Gorsline’s choice of etching as a medium is significant. Unlike painting or sculpture, printmaking is often associated with democratic, reproducible art. It connects this scene of environmental and social disruption to broader issues of labor, industry, and the vulnerability of working-class communities to natural disasters. Through the meticulous craft of etching, Gorsline elevates a scene of everyday struggle, inviting us to reflect on the relationship between human activity, the environment, and the built world.