Anabasis 1957

Benton Spruance’s “Anabasis” is a print, so already we know that it’s about process. It's not just about one mark but the process of building marks, layering colours, and seeing what emerges. Look at the way the light seems to both reveal and obscure the figures in the scene. The layers of colour create a really luminous surface with a kind of dreamlike quality, and you can see the texture and the grain of the stone that Spruance used. The details of the image, the sun, the riders, the dog, are all defined with this quality of being slightly out of reach. The way the artist has worked with the textures and colours makes me think of Arthur Dove's landscapes; Dove worked with a similar sort of intuitive approach to mark making, with the aim of evoking the essence of a place. It feels like Spruance is doing something similar here, tapping into something universal about human experience. The lack of clarity is not a weakness but an open door to multiple interpretations.