St. Paul's Over Temple Stairs 1905

Joseph Pennell made this print, St. Paul's Over Temple Stairs, using etching sometime between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. What strikes me is the overall lightness and delicacy of the marks. It really speaks to printmaking as an alchemical process, a kind of indirect and unpredictable dance. Look at the Temple stairs themselves, see how they're built up from these tiny, almost hesitant lines. You can sense the artist feeling his way, building form through accumulation. It's like a whisper of a place, not a bold declaration. I love how the image is almost fading away, as if the city itself is dissolving into memory. This approach reminds me a bit of Whistler, an earlier etcher. Both artists seemed more interested in capturing the ephemeral feeling of a place, rather than a literal depiction. And that’s what art is for, right? To show us new ways of seeing and feeling the world, even if it's a little hazy and dreamlike.