St. Severin, Paris 1902

Donald Shaw MacLaughlan made this etching of St. Severin in Paris, and it's like a love letter to line. Look how he coaxes the light and shadow from the old buildings with these tiny, precise marks. The whole image is built from the ground up with a network of these lines. They're not just describing the scene, they're creating a mood, a kind of quiet intensity. See how the lines on the right side are tight and close together creating a stark contrast with the hazy cathedral in the center? It gives the whole scene a kind of vibrating energy. MacLaughlan's got something of Whistler in him, don't you think? Both of them understood how much you can say with so little, how a few well-placed lines can capture the soul of a place. Art isn't just about what you see, it's about how you see it, and MacLaughlan invites us to see Paris through his eyes, one line at a time.