The Great Hammer 1916

Joseph Pennell made "The Great Hammer" sometime between 1857 and 1926, with a whole mess of lines that somehow evoke the overwhelming feeling of an industrial interior. You can imagine him wrestling with the plate, trying to catch the scale and gloom of the place. I love that Pennell didn't try to pretty it up. Look how the darkness kind of oozes out, especially in the upper right. It’s like he's saying, "This is it, this is what progress looks like—kinda scary, huh?" Those tiny figures dwarfed by the hammer make you wonder about labor, about power, about the human cost of all this bigness. It puts me in mind of Piranesi, but instead of ancient Rome, it’s the modern age, all grit and iron. Artists, always riffing off each other, showing us new ways to feel the world.