Rotterdam 1845

Curator: This is William Callow's "Rotterdam", held here at the Tate. It’s rendered in pencil on paper, a fleeting vision of the city. Editor: It feels almost ghostly, doesn’t it? Like peering through fog. The skeletal lines suggest a Rotterdam poised between memory and being. Curator: Callow was masterful at capturing light and atmosphere. Notice the density of lines around the buildings versus the open space of the water. Editor: And the sheer labor involved in capturing so many architectural details! Each brick, each window, a testament to the slow, deliberate act of seeing and recording. Imagine the hours spent, the pencils sharpened, all for this…sketch. Curator: I find a certain peacefulness in its unfinished quality, a promise of further exploration. Editor: Perhaps. Or maybe it speaks to the inherent limitations of representation, the impossibility of fully capturing the lived reality of a place, of labor, in a single sketch. Still, lovely.