Memory of Venice: the Palazzo Ducale and the Piazzetta c. 1900 - 1920

Here's a memory of Venice, the Palazzo Ducale and the Piazzetta, made with charcoal on paper by Eugène Vail. Look at the paper, the smudgy darkness, the way the light seems to glow from within. It's like Vail wasn't just drawing Venice, but conjuring it, pulling it up from some submerged place. I wonder if he stood there on the shore, squinting, trying to capture the exact shade of twilight, or if this came later, in the studio, from a half-remembered dream. Charcoal's a funny medium—so immediate, so forgiving. You can build up layers, erase, smudge, change your mind a million times. See how he’s used it to create a sense of atmosphere, the way the buildings seem to dissolve into the night. It’s like he's inviting us to share in his memory, to feel the city's weight and its magic, all at once. It reminds me of Whistler, another painter obsessed with capturing the fleeting beauty of the nocturne. Artists, we're all just chasing ghosts, trying to pin down something that’s always slipping away.