It's Lanes of Palaces Terraced Round the Slope, Toledo c. 1903

Joseph Pennell made this drawing of Toledo using crayon. I can almost feel the crayon scratching across the paper, the artist building up those dark, moody tones bit by bit, layering the shadows to give Toledo its imposing presence. Pennell coaxes out the depth of the architecture with strokes that look like they have been applied with the side of the crayon. I wonder what Pennell felt when he made this? Was he trying to capture the weight of history in those stone walls, or was he just playing with light and shadow? The towers in the background seem to loom, don't they? Like they've been there forever, watching over the city. I think artists are always riffing off each other, whether they know it or not, and Pennell is certainly in conversation with artists who tried to seize a moment in time. Artists like Pennell show us that paintings can be more than just pretty pictures; they can be places where we work through ideas, feelings, and ways of seeing.