The Binnacle 1930

Arthur Briscoe made this etching, The Binnacle, sometime in the first half of the 20th Century. Imagine him, working in monochrome, conjuring this entire scene out of a network of tiny lines. I can almost feel the biting wind and smell the salty water. The artist’s hand coaxed the figures from a blank plate through trial, error, and intuition. I wonder what it was like to be Briscoe, to stand on that deck, squinting into the horizon. Did he feel the same sense of awe and vulnerability as I do, looking at this? His marks, like shorthand for feeling, capture the essence of a moment, a fleeting atmospheric condition. Maybe he thought of Whistler, of the seascapes of Courbet. We build on each other, don't we? His work resonates with a kind of raw honesty. It’s an ongoing exchange of ideas across time, with each mark speaking volumes. Ambiguity is embraced, opening endless possibilities.