The toolbox on this cannon bears the arms of Nuremberg, Albrecht Dürer's birthplace and home to several of Emperor Maximilian's arms foundries. What's more, the Turk at right is believed to bear the face of Dürer himself. The artist made just six etchings on iron, probably abandoning the medium because he was dissatisfied with the coarse, crumbly lines that resulted. Although he preferred the more controlled vocabulary of engraving, Dürer exploited the freedom of the etching needle in the muscular tree and distant landscape, creating naturalistic effects that would have a lasting impact on the artists of the Danube School, who made prints focused solely on nature.

The Institute's current exhibition of Four Centuries of Fine Prints, assembled from the Herschel V. Jones Collection, offers members another of the periodic opportunities to savor the diverse pleasures of this great collection. So broad in scope is it, and so uniformly high in quality, that it presents a repertory of extraordinary richness in the field of graphic arts. Lucky the museum which possesses such a collection. It makes possible exhibitions of infinite variety on a theme which is, perhaps, more satisfying to many than that of any other phase of art; the theme of prints—so intimate, so appealing, so human and understandable, that those who sometimes feel ill at ease in the presence of painting and sculpture find their deepest satisfaction, both emotionally and intellectually, in the less spectacular exhibition of prints.Assembling an exhibition from a collection such as that presented by the late Herschel V. Jones in 1928 is as much for the museum staff as it is for the spectator of the completed show. The amount and variety of material is so great that the curator charged with arranging it can let his fancy roam almost at will. Assembling such a show is in many respects comparable to arranging the program for a great orchestra. Will it be a purely orchestral concert and if so will it feature only the great masters of musical literature? Or will it present the great masters leavened by composition of some individual genius whose work corresponds in quality but not in quantity with that of the great composers in whose company it finds itself? Will it be a program highlighted by a famous guest artist, whose performance adds unusual sparkle to a particular occasion? Will it be a combination of the traditional and the modern? And will it, finally, be given a special fillip by the inclusion of some such tragi-comic composition as Tyl Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks?Parallels for all these choices exist in the assembling of a print show from the Jones Collection. The great masters would be Dürer, Rembrandt, Goya, Meryon, Daumer, and Whistler; individual geniuses would be represented by certain early engravers such as Mantegna, who did few engravings but those supremely well, or by a rare and brilliant spirit such as William Blake. Famous guest artists might be Turner or the great portraitist Nanteuil, whose prints would contribute a particular and individual mood to the exhibition. The show might be devoted to landscapes, to portraits, to religious prints, or to some special theme such as medical or sporting subjects. It might be a judicious blend of all. It might be confined to any one of the graphic arts processes: to wood engraving or wood cutting, to engravings on copper, to etchings, mezzotints, aquatints, or lithographs. It could, with no difficulty at all, present both the traditional and the modern approach to print-making. As for seasoning, the touch of puckishness, the unexpected addition of a flavor which gives any occasion or any work of art a special quality, that could be achieved by the inclusion of a Callot or a Hogarth or a Daumier.The Institute's current show of prints from the Jones collection incorporates several of these ideas. As indicated in the title, Four Centuries of Fine Prints, it is limited in time, in this instance to the period covering the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. This limitation precludes the showing of the exciting and brilliant work of nineteenth and twentieth century printmakers, but since this field was covered to a large extent in the Institute's recent exhibition of Prints by French Painters, by the Walker Art Center's Vanguard Group, and by the Saint Paul Gallery's German Expressionists, the omission is deliberate.The main purpose of the exhibition is to recall anew the richness of the Jones collection in early woodcuts, in the work of the great masters, and in superb and rare impressions by men whose contributions to the field were limited but valuable. It features some of the lesser-known works of such artists as Dürer and Rembrandt, whose names have become as inescapably associated with the Four Horsemen, Melancholia, The Three Trees, and the Hundred Guilder Print, as have those of Beethoven and Brahms with their great symphonies. Some of these well-known prints are included, to be sure. Not to include them would be equivalent to omitting Brahms' First Symphony or Beethoven's Sixth in an orchestral season.The exhibition is also designed to illustrate, in a somewhat general way, the course taken by the graphic arts in the process of becoming one of the most potent of all methods of communication. One has only to think what the discovery of printing has contributed to learning, to the communication of intelligence of all kinds, to propaganda, to the understanding and appreciation of the human spirit, to realize what an enormous part prints play in the life of man.One of the earliest prints in the exhibition is the anonymous mid-fifteenth century dotted print depicting Christ Crowned with Thorns. It is interesting not only as an example of a process used chiefly in fifteenth-century Germany, but as an expression of the Gothic spirit in the prints of Northern Europe. The arbitrary handling of the drapery and the attempt to convey, through facial expression and stilted gesture, the idea which the artist sought to express are characteristic of the first early attempts to communicate thought to others by means of prints. This is a far remove from Goya's conception of prints as a universal language, but it marks the beginning of a belief which has come to be almost universally accepted in our own day: that one picture is worth a thousand words.The gradual development by which the graphic arts reached their high pinnacle in shaping the thoughts and lives of men may be followed a part of the way in the prints that come after this early and naïve example. It is to be seen in the rare and beautiful impression of the Risen Christ between Two Saints by Mantegna—a work to which the artist's passion for the antique, his sculptural feeling of form, and his painterly approach to an alien medium, have contributed a new and dramatic quality which would have seemed miraculous to the anonymous German artist of the dotted print.It is to be seen in Dürer's St. Jerome in his Study and in the famous Four Horsemen, in which the inquiring and humanistic spirit of the Renaissance prepares to rout the last elements of Gothicism in German art. It appears in a new way in the Cannon, wherein Dürer first experimented with etching and engraving and first took notice, somewhat awkwardly but charmingly, of nature.With the coming of Rembrandt a new spirit became evident in prints. The first great painter to devote himself to etching, Rembrandt showed that it was possible to speak directly in a medium that had hitherto been characterized by inflexibility and abstraction rather than by subtlety and freedom. Added to this genius for drawing, and thus for etching, was an understanding of, and a compassion for, man that made Rembrandt's work in the etched medium the loftiest of all time. The dramatic use of light and deep shadow to heighten the suspense in the plate of Dr. Faustus in his Study, the moving wonder of the small Raising of Lazarus, and the brooding and mysterious quiet in the simple but eloquent small landscapes reveal Rembrandt's unparalleled mastery in communicating thought through prints.Where Rembrandt was compassionate and detached, Goya was detached and brutal, yet he, like Rembrandt, came close to making prints serve as the universal language he dreamed of them as being. He laid bare the cupidity and cruelty of man to fellow-man and in so doing introduced into his prints the cloudy realm of the subconscious which has become such a vital factor in determining the actions of men today. The contribution of these great masters to the beauty and value of prints is supported by the work of many other artists in the current exhibition, which gives members a further opportunity of becoming acquainted with the Jones collection.Referenced Works of Art

1. Christ Crowned with Thorns. Anonymous XV century German potted print in the current exhibition of fine prints from the Herschel V. Jones Collection.
2. The Risen Christ Between Two Saints by Andrea Mantegna. Italian, XV century. The Herschel V. Jones collection.
3. St. Jerome in his Study. Woodcut by Albrecht Dürer in the current exhibition of prints from the Jones collection.
4. The Cannon by Dürer. A combined etching and engraving notable for the interest displayed in landscape. Jones collection
5. Dr. Faustus in his Study Watching the Magic Disk. Etching by Rembrandt van Rijn. Dutch, XVII century
6. Porch with Lattern is one of the most brilliant of the small group of etchings done by the XVIII century Italian artist Canaletto.