Aquarium 1936

G. Ralph Smith made this print called ‘Aquarium’ and it is kind of amazing, right? I mean, to render the world with just shades of grey—it's a way of seeing that I admire so much. Just imagine Smith in his studio, watching the shadows move, and imagining how to translate that onto the paper. Look at the people in the scene, gazing into the tanks, just like we’re gazing at this image. There’s a doubling effect, an aquarium within an aquarium. What was Smith thinking when he made this? Was he trying to capture a sense of wonder, or maybe something deeper, about how we look at nature, at each other? That’s what art does, right? It holds up a mirror, and we see ourselves seeing.