The Shot Tower 1904

Muirhead Bone made this print, called "The Shot Tower," using etching. Look closely at how the marks vary, thin and quick in the water, then darkening to describe the weight of the buildings. It's all about pressure and the trace of a line. There's a real joy in the sheer physicality of the process. You can almost feel Bone dragging his tool across the plate, building up those delicate networks of lines. See how the tower is rendered, with these tiny, close-knit marks? You can feel the density of the stone, compared to the fleeting reflections on the river’s surface, which are rendered with sparse, delicate strokes. That tower, so solid and imposing, dominates the landscape, while at the same time the print feels so atmospheric. Bone reminds me of Piranesi, and how he documented the changing face of Rome, that sense of a world under constant construction, one mark at a time. Art is not about answers, but about seeing.