Study for Miles Standish’s Challenge 1969

This is a drawing by Edwin Austin Abbey and you can see the furious energy of the pen racing across the page. The ink is thick and insistent, creating a theatrical scene full of tension and drama. I imagine Abbey drawing this, how he would have been so absorbed, so quick, almost possessed by the need to get it all down. It feels like he had to exorcise some idea, something burning within him. What was he thinking about? Did he feel the weight of history, of responsibility, as he put pen to paper? The lines are scratchy and nervous, a storm of marks that somehow coalesce into figures and forms. And it makes me think about Delacroix, who also captured wild and expressive moments in history paintings. It's like artists are always in conversation, riffing off each other, finding new ways to express the same old human drama. This drawing is a great reminder that art is alive, messy, and always changing.