The Baptistry, Florence 1920

William Walcot made "The Baptistry, Florence" with a drypoint needle on paper. It's like he's scrawling directly into the metal, dragging the burr along for a velvety line, right? I imagine Walcot, standing there, squinting in the Tuscan sun, trying to capture the impossible: the weight of history, the dance of light on stone. The city teems with life, people mill about, rendered as scribbles, each line a hum. There's a tension between precision and looseness; the architecture rendered with such detail. That one long, looping stroke could be a person walking or a shadow cast, who knows! Think of Piranesi's etchings of Rome, and how he conveyed the city's grandeur. Walcot’s not after that, it’s more about the feeling of being there, the fleeting moment. It's like he's inviting us into the scene, letting us fill in the blanks.