The Influence of the Moon
1950
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
etching, aquatint, and softground etching in black and yellow-green on wove paper
Dimensions
plate: 47.5 x 62.9 cm (18 11/16 x 24 3/4 in.) sheet: 55.5 x 74.9 cm (21 7/8 x 29 1/2 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Ruth Cole Kainen
Accession Number
2006.57.31
Art Historical Context
**The Influence of the Moon**, a captivating 1950 print by Karl Schrag, visitors into a dreamlike realm where celestial forces shape the earthly landscape. Created using etching, aquatint and softground etching in and yellow-green inks on wove paper (plate: 47.5 x 62.9 cm), this work exemplifies mid-20th-century print's technical prowess. Schrag, German-born American artist renowned for his intricate, visionary compositions, captures subtle tonal shifts and textures through these methods—etching for precise lines, aquatint for velvety gradations mimicking watercolor, and softground for organic...
About the Artist
Karl Schrag
Karl Schrag (1912–1995) was a German-born American painter and printmaker whose richly expressive work occupied a distinctive space between abstraction and a deeply felt response to the natural world. Born in Karlsruhe, Germany, he studied in Geneva, Paris, and at the École des Beaux-Arts, immersing himself in the currents of European modernism before the rise of National Socialism forced him, lik...