Saint Bartholomew's Gate 1907

Joseph Pennell made this etching of Saint Bartholomew's Gate in 1903, somewhere in London. Look at the dense network of lines, like a rain of tiny marks. I imagine Pennell, leaning in close, his hand moving in short, quick bursts, building up the image bit by bit. It’s like he’s trying to capture not just the look of the place, but its very atmosphere, the feeling of the city itself. The buildings seem to breathe, don't they? They lean into each other, whispering secrets. I bet Pennell felt that intimacy too, standing there in the street, sketching away. And that figure walking towards us - is it Pennell himself? Or just a passerby caught in the urban web? Either way, they’re part of the story, part of the endless dance of city life. I bet he never thought we'd still be looking at it now, over a hundred years later. That’s the funny thing about art, it keeps the conversation going.