Fitting Guns in Turrets 1916

Joseph Pennell made this drawing, Fitting Guns in Turrets, with what looks like graphite on paper. It's this wild dance of lines, a real frenzy of mark-making that captures a scene of industry. Pennell’s lines are raw, scratchy, and full of energy, really getting at the physical presence of these massive guns. It's like he's wrestling with the subject, trying to pin down the weight and scale of it all. Notice how some lines are darker, pressed harder into the paper, while others are light and fleeting, like tentative whispers. The area around the workers has this sense of controlled chaos, all these scribbles coming together to create a feeling of movement and activity. It's all about the process here, the artist’s hand evident in every stroke, every smudge. It's like Egon Schiele got into engineering, all jagged edges and raw emotion, blurring the line between observation and expression. Pennell isn’t just showing us the guns; he’s making us feel the weight of them.