St. Paul's-Downtown NY c. 1913

Here is John Marin’s pencil sketch of St. Paul’s, downtown New York. The whole thing feels tentative, like he’s feeling his way through the cityscape. A constant shifting, trying to find a composition in the chaos. Look at the way the lines swarm and coalesce to create those buildings, as if they’re about to take flight, or maybe crumble. You can feel the city’s pulse, a nervous energy captured in the graphite. I wonder what Marin was thinking as he put pencil to paper. Was he trying to capture the essence of New York, its frenetic pace and towering ambition? He’s got that steeple in there, so maybe he was thinking about the juxtaposition of old and new, tradition and progress, heaven and earth. Whatever it was, it feels like a conversation, between the artist, the city, and us, the viewers.