Ponte dei Baretteri 1885

Andrew Fisher Bunner made this pen and ink drawing, “Ponte dei Baretteri”, in 1885. With the barest of means, he describes a layered scene in Venice: boats, water, bridge, architecture. The physical properties of ink—its darkness, its fluidity, its capacity to be layered—are put to excellent use here. Bunner coaxes a lot of tonal range out of his chosen medium, moving from the bright paper surface to areas of deep shadow. Look closely, and you’ll notice that he uses a wide variety of marks, from long, continuous strokes to tiny hatch marks and stippling. This range of touch brings the scene to life, and conveys a sense of its particular atmosphere. Interestingly, this drawing aesthetic was often used for commercial illustration during the period. We might consider Bunner's drawing as a kind of labor, a practice of intense looking and slow recording that stands in contrast to the fast-paced industrialization of the time. It invites us to pause, consider, and appreciate the built environment, crafted, like the drawing itself, by human hands.