Etching. An iron girder spans an excavation between two structures; at the far end of the excavation area is a bare wall. At the centre left, standing on the girder, is a person who is looking down. Behind the excavation rises a nineteenth-century rusticated building with large pilasters and with two windows visible. In the foreground, a stepped wall curves into the lower right corner, and in the middle distance, at the far right, is a palm tree. The composition is lightly etched but is essentially complete. There are three variant impressions of this state.
Much etching has been added to the plate, in order to achieve greater, more dramatic, contrasts between light and dark and to clarify architectural details. Etched shading has been added to the sky in the upper right corner. The plate has been burnished in the upper left corner, in places of deep shadow at the left, and adjacent to the left vertical contour of the wall below the steps. Some oblique lines have been added to the wall of the steps.
Oblique strokes of drypoint have been added to the sky in the upper right corner. Strokes of vertical shading have been added to three strips of vertical shadow at the upper left. The left contour of the wall below the steps, together with that of the column above them, has been strengthened, and a horizontal line has been added along the bottom right edge of the steps. Some drypoint accents have been added above this.
The shadows below the girder, at the left and at the centre of the image, have been burnished to provide greater structural differentiation to the surfaces on which they fall.
- Catalogue Number
- E.062
- Title and Date
- Excavation
1992; reworked 1996
- Description of Featured Image
- An iron girder spans an excavation between two structures; at the far end of the excavation area is a bare wall, which is illuminated by strong light. At the centre left, standing on the girder but almost hidden in shadow, is a person who is looking down. Behind the excavation rises a nineteenth-century rusticated building with large pilasters and with two windows visible. In the foreground, a stepped wall curves into the lower right corner, and in the middle distance, at the far right, is a palm tree.
- Where Made
- Dunmoochin, Cottles Bridge. Alphington, Melbourne
- Medium Category and Technique
- Intaglio Print: Etching, burnishing and drypoint on copper
- Support
- Wove paper. Identified papers: Hahnemühle paper with watermark: cockerel within a circle; Fabriano paper with watermark: ‘CMF’ with star above, within a circle/oval.
- Dimensions
-
Image size: 158 x 198 mm
Matrix size: 158 x 200 mm - Artist’s Record Number
- RAE.56 (1992), RAE.109 (1996)
- Printer(s) and Workshop(s)
- All impressions printed by Rick Amor. States I through IV printed by Amor in his Dunmoochin studio, Cottles Bridge. States V through VII printed in the Alphington studio.
- Summary Edition Information
- Seven states. No edition.
- Collections
- State Library of Victoria, Melbourne: six state impressions, numbered 1 through 6, all dated 1992; three state impressions, numbered 1 through 3, all dated 1996.
- Comment
This etching makes use of a photograph taken by Amor in the area around Dight’s Mill, an industrial ruin on the Yarra River, in the inner Melbourne suburb of Abbotsford. The flour miller John Dight began building his brick mill on the Yarra in the late 1830s; operational by the early 1840s, Dight’s mill is said to be the first water-powered flour mill in the Port Phillip District, as the state of Victoria was then known. In the mid nineteenth century, the production of flour at the mill came to an end, and by the late 1860s the building had been abandoned. A new flour mill complex was built on its site in 1888; two decades later, in 1909, the various mill buildings were destroyed by fire.
Amor’s photograph, which is not dated, is of the front of the mill ruins, overgrown with vegetation. In his etching, the ruins are recognizable by the iron girder and the space beneath it, as well as by the curving wall on the right. However, the actual scene is entirely transformed by its Piranesian architectural setting. The transformation is made explicit in an undated preparatory pencil drawing for the etching.
The work that Amor did on E.062 in 1992 took the image to a dark grey tonality. When he returned to the print four years later, he did so to intensify its darkness, to emphasize the irregularities of the excavation of the bank at left, and to lighten the white area beneath the bridging girder. Yet, despite the clarifications of form, the etching retains a measure of spatial ambiguity.
- Keywords
- Building
- URL
- https://catalogue.rickamor.com.au/works/intaglio/2755/
Record last updated 15/02/2021