Marching Gate in Aachen 

Editor: Here we have "Marching Gate in Aachen," a pencil drawing on paper by Karl Ballenberger. It feels like a preliminary sketch, somehow delicate, and maybe even a bit haunting. What captures your imagination when you look at this? Curator: Haunting is a great word. I get a similar sense of something half-remembered, a dream perhaps. The architectural details are there, but the almost ethereal lightness of the pencil gives it a ghostly quality. Think about how a drawing like this isn't just a representation of a real place. Ballenberger isn't a camera, and what he chooses to include, and *how* he chooses to depict it, is fascinating. What do you notice about the way he uses line and space? Editor: The lines are very light and precise, not a lot of shading. It feels…objective? But you're right, the softness keeps it from being too clinical. And there's so much empty space around the gate itself! Curator: Precisely. The negative space almost becomes a character. It isolates the gate, yes, but also imbues it with a certain kind of…presence, wouldn’t you say? Makes you wonder about what *isn’t* there, what memories, or emotions, are floating in that surrounding air. Do you find yourself wanting to fill it in or just appreciate the emptiness? Editor: Hmm. Maybe both? I think initially I want to fill it in, see the bustle of a medieval town around it, but then I appreciate how the emptiness gives it a timeless quality, like a monument standing alone. Curator: I couldn't agree more! It becomes almost meditative, this simple drawing, opening up space for *our* thoughts to wander and to shape their own narratives around this Marching Gate. Art at its best, really – a conversation across time. Editor: Definitely! I’ll never look at a landscape drawing the same way again. Thanks!