The Mosque, Delphi 1912

Ernest Stephen Lumsden made this etching of The Mosque, Delphi, using delicate lines to conjure a bustling scene. I can imagine Lumsden standing there, squinting in the sun, trying to capture the essence of the place. The architecture rises like a dreamy vision, while the street below buzzes with life. I love the way the ground in the foreground is left open, just a few tentative lines, as if the artist wasn't quite sure how to approach it, which creates an interesting tension between the detailed building and the sketchy foreground. Etching reminds me of the work of other artists who used line to express atmosphere, like Whistler. There’s something about the way artists see the world, how they translate it through marks and gestures, that always gets me. It's like we're all in conversation, across time and space. Looking at art is not about arriving at one single, definitive explanation, but about embracing ambiguity.