Portsmouth Doorway 1916

Childe Hassam made this print, Portsmouth Doorway, with etching on paper, and what strikes me is the immediacy of the marks. You can almost see him working, the way he's built up the image from a network of tiny lines. The texture is amazing – look at how he suggests the rough brick with just a few scribbles, or the way the leaves overhead create these intricate patterns of light and shadow. It's all about suggestion, about letting the viewer's eye complete the picture. Take that doorway, for instance: it's not just a doorway, it's a threshold, a place of possibility. Hassam was part of that whole Impressionist moment, and you can see how he uses line and tone to capture the fleeting quality of light, just like Monet used brushstrokes. But there's also something very American about it, a kind of directness and simplicity that reminds me of Whistler. It's like he's saying, "Here it is, the world, as I see it – take it or leave it."