Please read the article “Athletic Aesthetics: Art, Craft and Bolton Brown” https://artinprint.org/article/athletic-aesthetics-art-craft-and-bolton-brown/
A surprising revelation to me was Brown’s influence in lithography early in the 20th century. As an artist and printmaker, he lived by many of the printmaking tenets we ascribe to printmaking and printmakers in the last century; immersion and obsession with technique, the marriage of creativity with the technical, and a desire to separate the commercial from fine art.
In a thoughtful written statement, answer the following questions. If you use quotes from the text, please do cite by using quotation marks and referring to John Murphy as the author of the quote.
***Also, please write in a first-person voice, if that is better to explain your ideas.
1. How had Ruskin’s Arts and Crafts Movement inspired Bolton Brown? What ideologies of the Arts & Crafts movement did Brown adopt in his lithography practice?
2. Thinking about creating your own lithograph, do you think the idea of “athletics” and “manual labour” is essential to the lithography process? Why? Use your own experience and ideas from the article to explain your position.
3. Discuss Brown’s opinion of the commercial history of lithography and how it motivated him, in his own practice. What is your opinion of the commercial history of lithography, in comparison to Brown’s ideas. Are they similar, or different, and why?
4. How did nature, the reality of the lithograph stone, as well as Brown’s own personal history influence his lithography practice? Can we find meaning and importance in Brown’s lithography philosophy today? Or do you feel otherwise? Explain
