Cathedral, Laon, I

John Marin, artist

1870–1953

Cathedral, Laon, I, 1906

Where object was made: France

Material/technique: etching; Japanese paper

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 220 x 138 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 258 x 179 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 8 11/16 x 5 7/16 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 10 3/16 x 7 1/16 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 19 x 14 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: Peter T. Bohan Art Acquisition Fund

Accession number: 1992.0125

Not on display

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Label texts

Exhibition Label:
"American Etchers Abroad, 1880-1939," Apr-2004, Reed Anderson
Early in 1906, John Marin spent several months in Amsterdam honing his etching skills. He returned to Paris by way of Laon, staying long enough to produce nine etchings of the picturesque medieval town. Most of these works depict some element of the city’s magnificent fifteenth-century cathedral. "Cathedral, Laon, I" is the only print in this series that was published in an edition; all of the others are known only through two or three proofs.
In this work the viewer gazes across a small square courtyard, a tower of the great church rising over the rooftop of the adjacent building. Marin uses nervous roving lines to articulate the tiles covering the mansard roof and the delicate tracery of the cathedral’s imposing tower. He suggests shadows with areas of delicate cross-hatching and abstract patterns composed of deeply etched vertical lines. Marin’s use of retroussage heightens the play of light and dark. As in many of his early etchings, human beings are little more than staffage, their presence barely articulated, for example, the ghost-like figure ascending the steps at the left.