Satyr and Nymph

In Robert Henri's playful image inspired by ancient Greco-Roman mythology, a satyr (a half-man, half-goat creature embodying the erotic impulse) gleefully pursues a plump nymph (a nature spirit). The artist rendered this sketchy, monochromatic image by using brushes, rags, and perhaps the handle-end of a paintbrush to scrape through a layer of ink applied to a smooth-surfaced plate. By evenly pressing a sheet of paper against the inked plate, he produced an impression known as a monotype. Typically, only a single print is made this way. In the case of Satyr and Nymph, however, Henri made two; the darker first impression is in the collection of the Delaware Art Museum.

Henri had made monotypes as early as 1898, during his third visit to Paris. At that time, probably through his friend the Canadian painter James Wilson Morrice (1865–1924), he may have encountered the innovative monotype work then being undertaken by his compatriot Maurice Prendergast and by French avant-garde artists. Henri may have encouraged the use of the process among his artistic circle in the United States. On April 7, 1907, several members gathered at the New York studio of John Sloan (who owned an etching press) to make monotypes in a convivial atmosphere. Henri's resulting two impressions of Satyr and Nymph remained with the host who, having inscribed Henri's name on the Delaware Museum's version, may have noted the abbreviated date on this one. Sloan's own monotype Dressing by Gaslight (TF 1996.58) probably was also a product of this printmaking session. The erotic tenor of both artists' images suggests the all-male atmosphere of the evening's gathering. The classically inspired subject of a nymph pursued by a satyr is anomalous in Henri's work, but it is consistent with his philosophy of individual freedom and of art-making as a means of embracing life in all its aspects.

Henri and Sloan were the acknowledged leaders of a group, later dubbed the Ashcan school for the gritty urban realism of their art, who prized experimentation and individuality. Situated on the boundary between printmaking and painting, the monotype long has been appreciated as a medium for experimentation, one that produces results quickly and with little technical expertise. As Satyr and Nymph attests, the medium also allowed the artist to concentrate on creating an image entirely in lights and darks while actively manipulating ink in the manner of oil paint.

On Process: The American Print, Technique Examined, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, January 13–March 2, 2001.

Kiehl, David W. "Monotypes in America in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries," in The Painterly Print, Monotypes from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980, pp. 45-56; and entry on pp. 176–77, no. 65; pp. 178–79.