La Passerelle, Boulogne 1902

Donald Shaw MacLaughlan's "La Passerelle, Boulogne", at the Art Institute of Chicago, is a dance of light and shadow rendered in delicate lines. I can imagine MacLaughlan, hunched over his plate, etching these marks, coaxing depth from a flat surface. There's such a controlled chaos to the lines, especially around the bridge and the cluster of figures--like he's both mapping the scene and letting it breathe. Look at how the hatching varies—dense and dark in the foreground to suggest the damp earth and light, wispy lines to render the hill in the background. You get the feeling he really studied the old masters. There's a little bit of Rembrandt in the way he plays with light and shadow and a bit of Whistler in the focus on the atmosphere of the scene. And that bridge, those vertical lines! It feels like a screen, half-revealing, half-obscuring what lies beyond. That reminds me of a painting! It's as if he's inviting us to look more closely, to unravel the secrets of this bustling port city. It's a beautiful, evocative piece.