Untitled (Fortified City) c. 1930

John Carroll made this print, Untitled (Fortified City), with a whole lotta lines. Imagine him drawing this stone fortress and thinking about all those other artists who’ve built imaginary places, like Piranesi, with his prisons, or Paul Klee, with his fairy tale architecture. It must have been interesting for Carroll to think about what to include and what to leave out to make us feel the weight of the stones, and the overall imposing scale of this structure, like a giant geometric beast emerging from the land! I wonder if Carroll ever visited a real fortified city? Maybe he was interested in how the city functioned? Or maybe he was inspired by the idea of building a sanctuary; I imagine it’s a little of both. The surface is flat, but through mark-making, he builds volume and texture and even a sense of narrative.