A Forward Gun on a Patrol Boat 1919

Arthur Lismer made this artwork, titled *A Forward Gun on a Patrol Boat*, at an unknown date, but is now held at the Canadian War Museum. The whole thing is rendered in this intense, almost frantic hatching, like a swarm of tiny lines building up the image. The sky, the sea, even the metal of the gun, it's all vibrating with this energy. I’m thinking about how Lismer's mark-making gives us the sense of being on a boat pitching in the waves. Check out the way the lines curve and bend to describe the hull of the boat, and the way they tighten up to suggest the weight of the gun itself. It’s like he's using the line not just to describe what he sees, but also to convey what it feels like, the harsh conditions of the war, and the constant motion of the sea. I can't help but compare it to some of the German Expressionist printmakers like Kirchner, who also used stark, graphic lines to capture the raw intensity of modern life. It all points to art being this ongoing conversation, a way of seeing and feeling that artists share across time and space.