View from the Gate, Tetuan 1912

This etching, View from the Gate, Tetuan, was made by James McBey. I imagine the artist working with an economy of means, allowing the sepia tones of the paper to breathe through the sparse, energetic lines. I can almost feel the incisiveness of the etching needle biting into the plate, the artist’s hand moving deftly to capture the immediacy of the scene before him. The marks are so descriptive and evocative—they reminded me of Twombly’s work. I wonder if McBey was thinking about him when he made this? The perspective is framed by an archway, a kind of portal that invites the viewer into a liminal space. It’s like peering through a looking glass into another world! But who is looking at whom here? The artist, the viewer, or the people within the walls? I love how the layers of meaning open up to the viewer. This makes art so exciting to me! The work exists in a perpetual state of becoming, accumulating new meaning with each encounter.