Chicago--Grain Elevator IV Connecting Bridges 1926

Werner Drewes made this etching called "Chicago--Grain Elevator IV Connecting Bridges" in 1926. You can see the image built up through these delicate, almost nervous lines. It's as if he's feeling his way through the scene. I love how the textures vary – from the smooth, rounded forms to the sharp edges of the connecting bridges. The contrasts really make the image pop! The diagonal lines create this sense of depth and pull you into the composition, especially on the left-hand side. It's like a vertiginous drop! I love how those horizontal bridges are rendered, they're slightly angled and give a kind of spatial ambiguity. Drewes was a student at the Bauhaus, and you can see echoes of the geometric abstraction they were exploring at the time. But there's also a kind of anxious energy, something a little more raw and emotional. Like Lyonel Feininger, he seems to be interested in these intersecting planes and how they create a sense of space. Art, at its best, is about this constant exchange of ideas, where artists borrow, steal, and transform.