Minneapolis Institute of Art

Brotherswater

Frank Morley Fletcher

Date

c.1900

Medium

Color woodcut

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

These two intrepid hikers are catching their breath in England’s Lake District, which today encompasses 885 square miles. Frank Morley Fletcher grew up just south of this area, in Lancashire, and may have ambled in this very spot. The water below is part of Brotherswater, a small lake originally called Broad Water but renamed in the 1800s after two brothers died there. Fletcher made use of the vertical “pillar” format found in Japanese prints, a sign of his affinity for Japanese color woodblock printmaking techniques, which he practiced and championed throughout his career. The swaths of flat color are hallmarks of such prints, as are the diagonal lines and our high vantage point. Fletcher painstakingly carved one of the blocks—he liked using cherry—to add detail to Brotherswater but decided to skip the black outlines in the sky, instead letting the shapes speak for themselves. This was a daring departure from Japanese practice and an example of the experimentation Fletcher and his followers went on to do. Europe

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