Plating the Hull 1918

Carl Albert Walter's lithograph, "Plating the Hull," from 1918, is a deep dive into black and white mark-making. It’s a scene of labor, built with what looks like thousands of tiny, deliberate strokes, like a meditative act of construction. The texture is everything here; the stone's grain feels almost like it's part of the ship itself. Look at the bottom left corner, where the hull curves—you can almost feel the weight of the steel. The light floods the background, making the workers appear in silhouette, a dance of shadow and form. It’s not just a picture of a ship being built; it's about the act of building, the physicality and the human effort involved. Walters reminds me a bit of Joseph Pennell, another artist who found beauty in industry. Both manage to find poetry in the mechanical, highlighting how art captures the ever-changing dialogue between us and the world we build.