The Wine-Dark Sea, Sunium 1913

Joseph Pennell made this etching of a temple in Sunium. I imagine him there with his etching plates, feeling that light, trying to capture this ancient scene in monochrome. The hatching marks create a kind of veil, as if we're looking at the scene through a screen. I get the sense of him wanting to record the texture and material of the stone and the architecture; and the feeling of the place. This kind of rapid mark-making, to me, is about the process of inquiry and the labor of trying to pin down a feeling. It feels as if the artist is reaching back across time, while also being rooted in his present moment. I feel a sense of longing in those marks, like he is asking himself what remains? It’s as if the drawing is a conversation across time.