A blot-lake with boat, surrounded by trees

Alexander Cozens

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This view of a lake with bushes and trees in the foreground and a low horizon in the distance is an example of what Alexander Cozens called an ink blot. The artist began with a vague pictorial idea in his mind and then quickly dashed and smudged black ink onto a sheet of paper with a thick brush. The overall composition was intended before the blot was begun, but the details were meant to rely on the swift and tendentially accidental movement of the hand and the brush. A blot made this way was to be reworked into a more carefully drawn landscape. The purpose of this technique was to stimulate the imagination of the artist in composing imaginary landscapes. Cozens described the blotting technique in his two publications "An Essay to Facilitate the Inventing of Landskips, Intended for Students in the Art" (1759) and "A New Method of Assisting the Invention in Drawing Original Compositions of Landscape" (1786).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art