Smeltery c. 1940

Jolán Gross-Bettelheim made this image of a Smeltery with ink on paper. Look at how she has built up the forms with such careful hatching, all those little lines must have taken ages! The artist’s eye lingers on the architecture of industry. You can almost feel the density of the graphite and how the tone shifts from light to dark. I wonder what it was like for her to depict this structure? Perhaps she was captivated by the energy of the industrial age, or maybe she was trying to make sense of the changing world around her. There's a sense of weight and volume to the forms of the industrial landscape. The artist is in a conversation with other urbanist painters like the German Otto Dix. These artists looked at cityscapes and found something to get energized and excited about. It’s an exchange of ideas across time, inspiring creativity. This image shows how painting embraces ambiguity, inviting you to find your own meaning in its forms.