Onward

Onward is an intaglio/relief print in which the combined techniques may reinforce a sense of directed movement through the pictorial field. The title has an imperative quality — a word of forward motion and persistence — and Johnson likely translated this into compositional terms through diagonal force lines, sequential marks, or overlapping forms that create visual momentum. Intaglio passages, which require pressure to transfer ink from recessed plates, carry a physical history of contact and force that suits the theme. Relief elements could provide more decisive surface marks that interrupt or propel the movement implied by the intaglio ground. Johnson's Bauhaus-influenced approach to design treated abstract form as capable of carrying directed meaning, and Onward is an example of that tradition applied to printmaking processes that are themselves directional — the press applies force in one direction, the ink moves, the impression is made.