Granaries to Babylon 1933

Editor: Here we have Louis Lozowick’s "Granaries to Babylon" from 1933, a graphite drawing that looks almost like a photograph. It’s incredibly detailed. The looming grain elevators feel… oppressive. Almost like these huge, silent sentinels. What am I supposed to make of them? Curator: Oppressive is a fascinating choice of words! They certainly possess a monumental quality, don't they? Lozowick was deeply interested in the forms of industry, especially how skyscrapers and factories shaped our modern experience. Does it strike you as celebratory or critical? I mean, consider the title itself: "Granaries to Babylon". It is such a rich expression loaded with implications about urban life, commerce, the past, the future. What do you see when you ponder the Babylon part? Editor: Well, Babylon… the biblical city of excess and decadence, right? Maybe Lozowick is saying industrialization is leading us down a similar path? The scale is definitely inhuman. So precise and geometrically sound in its Realism! Almost as if everything is a rigid factory that no longer yields space to a soul's inner experience, but yields purely function to external pressures. It's like a city reduced to the sole dimension of physical labor. Curator: I’d agree entirely! The contrast he creates between the almost classical calm of the granaries and the frenetic activity implied by the trains does create a sense of tension, doesn't it? Do you think Lozowick’s using the industrial landscape as a kind of stage for the human condition? I wonder. What part do emotions have here? Are the human actions aligned with natural emotions, or is everything, in line with Lozowick's style, more so mechanical and precise in nature? It's always exciting to ponder. Editor: Definitely something to keep in mind when trying to understand this piece! Thanks for illuminating those subtleties. I feel I understand more what Precisionism wants to express! Curator: My pleasure!