$1,500–$10,000. Common subjects: $1,500–$3,000. Key value factors: Bartlett's Watanabe-published prints of India and Southeast Asia are most valued. His vivid tropical colors distinguish his work.
Benaras, Early Morning depicts the ancient holy city of Varanasi, known in Bartlett's era as Benares, at the hour when pilgrims descend the stone ghats to bathe in the sacred Ganges. The early morning timing is crucial to the scene: this is when the city's spiritual life reaches its most concentrated intensity, as thousands of devotees perform ritual ablutions while the rising sun turns the river's surface to gold and the smoke from cremation ghats drifts across the water.
Bartlett's oban woodblock print captures the misty, luminous quality of dawn on the Ganges, where the massive architecture of the ghats rises in terraced ranks above the waterline. The 1919 printing date suggests this was produced from studies made during Bartlett's 1916 Indian journey, with several years of reflection allowing him to distill his observations into a composed design. The Japanese woodblock technique, with its capacity for subtle gradations of color achieved through bokashi shading, proved remarkably well suited to rendering the hazy, light-saturated atmosphere of a Ganges dawn.
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Benaras, Early Morning was created by Charles W. Bartlett in 1919.
Benaras, Early Morning depicts figures, religious, and rivers & lakes.
