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Mezzotinto
Making a mezzotint needs the same initial material as the copperplate print or the etching, nevertheless it is produced in a completely contradictable way. The copperplate, the subsequent bearer of the motives, is untreated and smooth for prints, etching and graphic arts. An imprint would leave the paper as white as an unexposed photo. In contrast of this the copperplate of the growing, developing mezzotint is evenly roughened by special tools in a velvety way so that the print of such a plate would result in evenly blackened paper. Accordingly, the motive of the mezzotint grows by the artist´s scraping, smoothening, engraving, rocking and deepening the copperplate. This unparalleled technique grants the possibility of sensitively shading the colors from flowing flat bright tones to dark ones as well as precise lines and raising contours. She also went a step further by bringing the traditional black and white technique into the full spectrum of colours.
The plate is coated with colors and a mixture of them by using brushes, tulles and vigorously and carefully rubbing them, handwiping one color into the other. They are then transferred onto the handmade paper. The plate serves the artist as her canvas, a work lasting for hours and hours to achieve a perfect balance of color and tone, which must occur anew for each printing process. By this, each print of an edition has the originality of a unique one.
With taking the linseed oiled dilution of colors, G.H. Rothe has succeeded in creating an artistic expression which equals that of a painting. Depending on it‘s size, the completition of such a plate will take weeks and most often months to perfection. The filigree structures on the surface of the relativly soft copperplate permits only a certain number of print proceedings and consequently each edition remains limited to 150-200 prints.
In all the works of G.H. Rothe pictorial presentations are thrillingly connected with surrealistic elements which cause the viewer to have an inward dialogue as if looking through a window into mythic spheres. The extensive spectrum of motives result in the artist´s idea of putting the transcendental message in the foreground instead of the mere representation of a moment. In spite of her photographic exactness of presentation, the emotion and sympathy of the viewer is even more important to her. She implies moments of aesthetic awarness making not only their beauty but their transitoriness clear also. Life and death - these two poles can often be experienced in a stirring way. G.H. Rothe´s devotion to the complicated technique of the mezzotint is simultaneously the gist and message of her view on life. In addition to her oil paintings and graffities, her mezzotints with their technical absolute and actual impressionism are at the same time in the tradition of the German romanticism and the French realism.
This great artist has succeeded in combining the thoroughly European experience of “home“ with the faresightedness of the „New World“ by continually wrestling with herself and with her ability. She has proven her uniqueness. |
