Parliament Street, Westminster 1904

Joseph Pennell made this print, Parliament Street, Westminster, using etching, and it’s a total mood. The lines are delicate, like whispers of ink on paper, all working together to capture a sense of place. Pennell wasn’t about perfection, and you can see that in the texture of this print. Look at the way he suggests the architecture, with these quick, gestural marks. It’s like he’s saying, "Here’s the feeling of Westminster, not a photograph of it." I love the way he uses the empty space, the bare paper, to create a sense of atmosphere, especially in the lower half of the image. There’s something almost Whistler-esque about this print, the way it balances detail with suggestion, but Pennell’s got his own thing going on. It makes me think about art as an ongoing conversation, where artists borrow and build on each other’s ideas. It shows how beauty can be found in the simplest of gestures.