City Scene I 1949

Bernard Brussel-Smith made this city scene with, I'm guessing, a woodblock, cutting into the wood to make all these marks. Look at all the black and white! There's an incredible range of tones and textures, created just through the power of the line. I imagine Brussel-Smith thinking about the city, its shapes and shadows, and then trying to capture that feeling with his tools. It's not just about representing what he sees, but about making a new thing, a new kind of city. The arrow on the street is so cool! It's like a little sculpture, pointing us in different directions, but also pointing back to the process of making the print itself. It reminds me a bit of Stuart Davis, how he took the everyday and turned it into something dynamic and alive. It just goes to show that art is a conversation, artists responding to each other across time and space, making something new out of what came before.