The Last of the General Post Office 1912 - 1913

Henry Rushbury made this etching, The Last of the General Post Office, with dark brown ink on paper. I love the way Rushbury uses the etching technique, it’s all about mark-making, like drawing with acid. You can see all these tiny, precise lines that build up to create the image, and the areas where he's used more lines are darker, denser, like shadows or weight. The sepia tone gives a sense of history, like a faded photograph, which fits perfectly with the subject. What I find interesting is the contrast between the solid, classical architecture of the Post Office and the chaos of its destruction. It's all about texture, from the smooth columns to the jagged edges of the broken walls. The cranes looming above feel almost alive, mechanical vultures picking at the carcass of the building. It reminds me of Piranesi's etchings of Roman ruins, that same sense of grandeur and decay, but here there's something more modern, the feeling of a city constantly rebuilding itself, an ongoing process of creation and destruction.