On the Brooklyn Bridge 1944

John Marin made this sketch, ‘On the Brooklyn Bridge,’ with graphite on paper. It’s all about capturing a sense of place through these spare, almost frantic lines. Marin’s mark-making is so immediate, so process-oriented, it feels like he’s trying to lasso the energy of the city. Look at how he renders the bridge’s architecture—just a few confident strokes, barely there, yet they convey so much. The texture of the paper peeks through, adding to the sense of lightness and speed. You can almost feel the breeze and the rumble of traffic. Those horses down there look as though they could bolt off the page! Marin’s like a jazz musician improvising on a theme. His work has some kinship with the early abstract drawings of someone like Hilma af Klint. Both of them allow us to see the world not as a fixed, solid thing, but as something fluid, always in motion. And isn't that how life feels sometimes?