A distinct flag has been added to the top of the circus tent at the centre of the print. Overall the mud, elephant and background trees have been significantly deepened with drypoint, whereas the clouds immediately to the left of the tent, and the vertical walls of the tent, have also been darkened with drypoint. Horizontal lines have been added to area between the lower left of the tent and the trees on the horizon. Some parallel vertical lines have been added to the prominent water puddle in the lower right.
- Catalogue Number
- E.178
- Title and Date
- The Tent 2018
- Description of Featured Image
- A large circus tent is pitched in a muddy field, the field is waterlogged with pools of rainwater. In front of the tent is a solitary elephant. In the background behind the tent, especially to the right, there is a line of shadowy trees marking the limits of the field. The sky is overcast in the distance, with a section of clear sky over the tent, illuminating the roof and walls of the structure and reflecting of the pools of rainwater in the mud.
- Medium Category and Technique
- Intaglio Print: Etching and drypoint on copper plate
- Support
- Wove paper. Identified papers: BFK Rives paper with watermark: ‘BFK RIVES / FRANCE’ with infinity symbol; Hanhnemühle paper; Somerset paper.
- Dimensions
-
Matrix size: 159 x 205 mm
- Artist’s Record Number
- RAE.225
- Summary Edition Information
- Four states. One incomplete edition. First edition: planned edition of ten numbered impressions, 2018.
- Literature
- For a review of Amor’s related painting The Tent, 2017: W.H. Chong, ‘Rick Amor’s beguiling The Tent at Niagara Galleries, Melbourne’, Daily Review [online], 14 September 2018
- Related Material
- Comment
Elephants have appeared occasionally in Amor’s paintings, such as The turning season from 2000 and Dream from 2020. In these two works the animal dominates the scene as either a wild threat to the urban landscape (the former) or the embodiment of a monumental calm. In The Tent, the elephant appears in a more expected place, in front of a circus big-top in which it might be the star performer. Rather than dominating the print, the elephant is positioned left of centre and it is dwarfed by the enormous tent, which sits in a large, empty waterlogged field with a distant boundary of trees. Domesticated and removed from the wild, the animal projects a strong melancholia. Apart from the elephant and the trampled field, whose surface has been destroyed by the activity of the circus, there are no other signs of life. Although it remains at a distance, the elephant appears uncontained by a fence or restraints and Amor has positioned the viewer inside the field with the beast. While the scene is less phantastic than some of Amor’s previous artworks featuring elephants, the solitary, The artist notes that he often dreams of elephants and speculates that it is their great size that is significant to him.
There is also an earlier version of the subject in painted in oils, with a prepatory sketch. W.H. Chong has written of the related painting:
“The picture is elegiac but not nostalgic. It is resolutely free of irony; there are no visual winks or nudges. The vapourous sky, lone elephant, chalk-white tent and churned earth impart a bleak, unsentimental tone. The scene is mysterious — Where is everyone? Is the season over? Is apocalypse now? Everything is still and silent, on the brink.”
Only two of the planned edition of ten was completed in 2018, as the artist was unsatisfied with the print at the time.
- Keywords
- Circus, Elephant
- URL
- https://catalogue.rickamor.com.au/works/intaglio/the-tent/
Record last updated 28/10/2024