Village Street 1920 - 1923

Walter Griffin made this drawing, Village Street, with crayon on paper. Look at the way he’s built up the image with these marks. It’s like he's thinking through drawing, letting the image emerge from a network of lines. There’s something so immediate and raw about the texture here. The blue and red crayons create depth but also a kind of visual buzz, especially in the area around the large tree. The way the colours overlay each other reminds me of some of Cezanne’s looser watercolours, where he’s trying to capture the feeling of light and atmosphere more than a photographic likeness. These marks accumulate, building up the volume of the tree, or defining the edges of the buildings. In the lower right, see how Griffin adds his signature, almost as another element in the composition, a final mark in this landscape. For me, this piece highlights how drawing is not just about representation, it's a process of discovery.