Bathers in a Brook n.d.

Rodolphe Bresdin made this print, Bathers in a Brook, using lithography, a process of printing from a flat stone or metal plate. It is a relatively democratic medium, capable of rendering fine detail, which suits Bresdin’s vision perfectly. The hazy scene teems with the kind of details that only lithography could capture: the craggy rocks in the foreground, the spindly vegetation, the figures bathing in the distance. Bresdin was a master of the medium. He often preferred to work on a small scale, so that he could focus on every square millimeter. The scene invites close looking, pulling you into an intensely detailed imaginative world. Bresdin was always hard up, and he relied on printmaking to make a living. Yet despite the fact that his images were made for sale, they are profoundly eccentric. Bresdin had a vision that was all his own, one that transcended the commercial world and expanded the very definition of what printmaking could be.