Brimming with Robert Rauschenberg’s hallmark use of appropriated images, found objects and paint, Crane, 1978 presents a striking culmination of the artist’s practices of the 1950s and 1960s. The elongated wooden panel was carefully proportioned by Rauschenberg with horizontal tape; the upper segment features appropriated images which are like those the artist used in the 1960s, inspired by his visit to Andy Warhol’s studio. Images of schooners, horses, and an automobile tire were created in part by using a process known as solvent transfer – a technique borrowed from printmaking which had become a signature approach for Rauschenberg by the 1970s. This unique transference process allowed Rauschenberg to control the varying levels of legibility an image has. This control is made ever poignant in Crane, as the range of focus to the images varies across the composition. The sailboats possess a soft sfumato effect which is contrasted with the starker focused images of the horse. The lower segment of the work is dominated by two found objects – a scarf which the artist adhered loosely to the surface, and a plastic comb, unceremoniously outlined and stuck directly to the panel. These are surrounded with a painterly surface in layers of white acrylic paint.
The composition of Crane is a masterful example of Rauschenberg’s Neo-Dada practice, influenced by Marcel Duchamp’s use of found objects. It echoes the artist’s famed Combine works of of the 1950s in which Rauschenberg challenged the concepts of painting and sculpture and almost eliminated the distinction between the two. In Crane, the moving scarf and static comb are further juxtaposed against an almost expressionist passage of white paint and appropriated images to create a stunningly balanced monument to Rauschenberg’s genius.
