The Bridge by Night 1925

James McBey made this etching called The Bridge by Night. The vertical lines, like heavy rain, almost obliterate the scene. It's like he’s trying to capture a fleeting moment, the city dissolving into the night, with the marks themselves enacting the act of dissolution. There’s something about the scratchy, almost frantic quality of the lines that gets to me. The bridge itself, a dark, brooding presence, seems to emerge from the shadows, while the architecture to the left shimmers with a kind of ghostly luminescence. Look closely, and you can almost feel the dampness in the air, the chill of the night, the echo of footsteps on the wet pavement. This reminds me of Whistler's nocturnes, in which the city becomes a dreamscape, a place of mystery and intrigue. Like Whistler, McBey seems to be interested in capturing not just the appearance of things, but the feeling, the atmosphere, the mood of a particular time and place. Art isn't about answers, it's about questions, and this print poses plenty.