St. Pauls Wharf 1884

Curator: Joseph Pennell’s “St. Pauls Wharf,” created in 1884, is an etching that offers a striking glimpse into the London cityscape. Editor: Immediately, I’m drawn to the contrast. It’s like the grand cathedral looming in the background almost mocks the gritty reality of the working waterfront in the foreground. Curator: That’s a wonderful observation. Pennell really captures the duality, doesn’t he? Consider the process itself: the meticulous etching, biting into the metal, feels like it mirrors the industrial wear and tear of the wharf he's depicting. Think about the sheer labor involved. Editor: Absolutely! And look at the lines. There's a delicacy, a precision in the way he renders the architecture, the rigging of the boats, yet everything feels almost ephemeral, like a memory. Is it just me or is there melancholy in the air? Curator: There is. Etchings like these often served as both documentation and commentary. What materials were being transported along that river, who was laboring on those docks? I’m thinking about empire, and production… the less romantic stuff! Editor: True. But look past the industrial and the cathedral... there's an echo of Whistler, I think, in that almost dreamlike quality of light and shadow. A reverence for the ordinary made extraordinary through observation and skill. Don't you feel like you can almost smell the salt and the coal smoke? It makes one reflect. Curator: I suppose it is Pennell trying to romanticize it, not dissimilar to photography. Perhaps that is what appeals, however… even with the focus on commerce it holds something akin to… truth, beauty? Something more, nonetheless. Editor: Well said! Truth and beauty wrestling in the mud of the Thames. Ultimately, this etching invites us to ponder the multi-layered reality of London then…and now, when these power structures are very much the same.