View from the Skyride Tower c. late 1920s

This print, "View from the Skyride Tower" by Anton Schutz, is a delicate dance of lines, etched into a metal plate, then pressed onto paper. It’s all about the process, a kind of controlled chaos where the artist coaxes an image from the resistance of the material. Look closely at the way Schutz renders the crowd, a mass of tiny marks that somehow convey the energy of a bustling space. The texture of the print is so important, it feels like you could run your fingers over the surface and trace the paths of the etcher’s needle. The composition itself is a bit disorienting, a vertiginous perspective that captures the thrill, and maybe the anxiety, of being suspended high above the world. Schutz reminds me a bit of Piranesi, in his obsessive detailing of architectural space. But in Schutz’s work there’s a distinctly modern sensibility, a fascination with industry and the spectacle of modern life. Art like this is a reminder that there are no fixed meanings, only possibilities.