The Levee from Eads Bridge, St. Louis 1919

Joseph Pennell made this drawing of the Levee from Eads Bridge, St Louis with graphite on paper. I can imagine Pennell perched high up on the bridge, squinting in the hazy light. Just look at the soft, smudgy atmosphere he’s created! The details emerge from this mist as though he’s conjuring the scene into being. The factory belches plumes of smoke. Are those tiny figures crossing the bridge? Pennell captures the bustle of industry with such energy. You know, I reckon his quick, scribbly marks echo the way he saw all this industry: as something in flux, a kind of ever-changing organism. It makes me think about how different kinds of marks can give us different ways of experiencing the world. Pennell wasn’t trying to give us a photo-realistic view. Instead, he offers an impression, something fugitive and ephemeral, much like life itself. And he inspires us, like so many artists do, each building on the ideas of the others, to see and understand the world anew.