Cast Iron Balcony Rail c. 1936

Thomas Byrne made this drawing of a cast iron balcony rail sometime between 1855 and 1995. He used ink to describe the architecture of the Pontalba Building, and I can imagine him bent over the paper, carefully creating the design on its surface. Look at these curves, how they swell and blossom like some weird botanical experiment! The ironwork seems to dance and twirl, as though it has a life of its own. I wonder, what did Byrne think about as he drew? Did he feel the weight of history, the echoes of the past in the architecture around him? Or was he simply lost in the beauty of the lines? Perhaps the weight of the iron gave him something solid to hold onto. Artists like Byrne are in dialogue with one another, riffing on shared traditions. As you can see, the artist transformed a functional object into a visual poem.