After Degas

English artist Howard Hodgkin’s painterly prints from the 1990s frequently reference framed artworks or windows. This print not only includes a hand-painted green tempera framing border, but its title looks back at the 19th-century French landscapes of Edgar Degas. While more abstract than Degas’s early oil paintings, they recall his groundbreaking work in pastel and monotype. Hodgkin achieved the sandy texture evident in the mountainous mass at the bottom of the image by adding a carborundum paste to the plate, rather than abrading and burnishing it. Using this technique to provide texture is similar to J. M. W. Turner’s mixed method landscapes.