Catherine Market 1903 - 1907

This artwork is a monochromatic print made by Charles Frederick William Mielatz, and it feels like a moment captured in time. I’m imagining the artist standing on the street corner, squinting through the viewfinder, trying to capture the energy of the Catherine Market. You can almost smell the fish and hear the vendors shouting! The texture of the street is amazing – see how Mielatz uses all those short, choppy lines to suggest the wet cobblestones, reflecting the light? I bet he was thinking about Whistler. I wonder if he labored over this piece. Did he rework certain areas, adding more detail to the figures, or the architecture of the market, or did he allow the ink to bleed in some areas? Maybe he wanted to capture the feeling of a fleeting moment, a snapshot of urban life. Artists, they’re always in conversation, riffing off each other, remixing ideas. There’s no right or wrong way to see it, just endless possibilities.