The Travellers, Charleroi 1911

Joseph Pennell made this etching, "The Travellers, Charleroi," sometime around the turn of the last century, using ink on paper. Pennell, like Whistler, was interested in printmaking and the tonal possibilities within a monochromatic palette, and that’s very clear here. The smokestacks are a series of marks, all pushing up, while the cable car overhead, well, that's something else. I mean, imagine being suspended in that little bucket amidst all that industrial murk. It's kind of terrifying, but also beautiful in a weird, haunting way. There's a push and pull, literally, of the image overall. Our eyes are pulled up and out by the verticals, and there's a tension being held by the horizontal lines. It reminds me a little of Piranesi's dark and brooding architectural fantasies. This is an industrial sublime; a landscape of labor, of progress, and maybe of a certain doom. It’s not necessarily about answers, but about keeping the questions alive.