Gezicht op het Hôtel meublé de Francfort in de rue d'Argout met een straatveegster 1907 - 1911

Henri Manesse made this print of the Hôtel meublé de Francfort with a street sweeper in it; it’s all lines, a way of mapping the world with this very basic tool. Look at the cross-hatching, like he’s building up layers and layers of tone; it’s not just about depicting the place, but about the process of depiction. The sweeper is just a few lines really, yet somehow she feels like the real focus of the whole composition. She’s holding a broom, or some kind of tool, and she’s at the fulcrum of all these vertiginous architectural lines. The lines are so fine, and yet the image feels so substantial, so real. It reminds me a little of Piranesi, all those dark, obsessive etchings of imaginary prisons, but much more modest in scale. Art is really all about seeing; Manesse helps us to look.