The Fallen Column, Athens 1913

Joseph Pennell made "The Fallen Column, Athens" using graphite, and the way he's built up the image is all about process. You can almost feel him feeling his way over the stones. Look at the bottom left corner, where the shading gets kind of scribbly, like he's testing the ground, seeing how dark he can go. It's all about the push and pull of the graphite, the layering, the smudging. He’s unafraid of the raw texture of the paper, letting it peek through. It makes the whole thing feel alive, like the ruins are still breathing. You can feel echoes of Piranesi in the way he's handled the scale and drama of the architecture. But Pennell's got his own thing going on, a looser, more immediate way of seeing that invites you into the scene. It's not just a drawing of some old rocks, it's an encounter, a moment in time.