0129 Looking at Patterns and Motifs

Abstract

I take as my point of departure the various meanings of the Spanish word trama, observing and ordering these as they relate to different aspects of the art of printmaking. The phenomenon of trama is appreciable in the conception and activity of printmaking and also in the materials this art employs, which in turn leave their mark upon the visible and the tactile. Trama is also important in the graphic narrative and in iconography, and this article contributes to the literature with two, hitherto unpublished examples. The first example is a multifaceted icon which was created in the context of popular European printmaking but which came to exert an influence on fine art printmaking even in Picasso. The second example is a drawing which I have been able to attribute to Marià Fortuny, the most internationally renowned Catalan painter of the nineteenth century, and which I examine in the light of an association that may be made between the drawing and a print by Rembrandt.