In both of these but particularly the second, we see Oxford as it were through a damp gauze, softening the image and making it more redolent of a time before Oxford became mostly a park-and-ride place still crammed with traffic.
Saturday, 2 May 2009
Oxford: city of aquatint
I have recently been reading Evelyn Waugh's book 'Brideshead Revisted' following seeing again the 1981 TV series. In the opening chapters, Oxford is referred to by the narrator Charles Ryder (who is an artist) as still being a 'city of aquatint'. I realised I had no idea what an aquatint is: in fact it is a particular kind of print, produced by a process I have not fully understood. But I see more clearly now why the book makes this reference. Below are two aquatints of Oxford, both admittedly of a time rather earlier than the 1920s when the book is set:
In both of these but particularly the second, we see Oxford as it were through a damp gauze, softening the image and making it more redolent of a time before Oxford became mostly a park-and-ride place still crammed with traffic.
In both of these but particularly the second, we see Oxford as it were through a damp gauze, softening the image and making it more redolent of a time before Oxford became mostly a park-and-ride place still crammed with traffic.
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