Faithful John 1922

Walter Crane made this image, Faithful John, and it looks like it was created with pen and ink. All those cross-hatched lines must have taken a while to lay down. I wonder if Crane ever felt, like I do when I am painting, as though he was making his own world through mark-making, and each mark was an effort to give the world form, but also to be surprised by it. There are so many figures and details, I can imagine him getting lost in the process. I’m drawn to the figure of a man playing the harp on the ship. The way Crane makes the lines of the harp shimmer with light feels like a metaphor for the music itself. I feel the push and pull of his lines like he is in conversation with artists from the past and present. It makes me think that he is on a journey, trying to figure something out, not unlike the rest of us artists.