Corner of State and Washington Streets, Chicago, in the Year 1865 c. 1928

Raoul Varin made this print of a Chicago street scene in 1865, we can tell from the soft blending of the ink that it was probably made with a technique called chromolithography. I love the range of values here, from bright white in the clouds to deep umber in the shadows. The way that Varin captures the hustle and bustle of city life, but it's also a romanticized view. If you look closely, you can see these tiny people scurrying about, going about their daily lives. The buildings are rendered with such care, and the horses pulling the carriages look like they're about to gallop right off the page. The way that the ink sits on the paper gives the image a tangible depth. It reminds me a little bit of some of the early Impressionist cityscapes like Gustave Caillebotte, who was interested in capturing fleeting moments of modern life, but Varin’s got a different kind of precision. It shows us that art is really about how we see and make sense of the world around us, and that’s always changing.