Dome and Spire: View of Frederica, Wilmington 1954

Orville Houghton Peets made this delicate print, titled "Dome and Spire: View of Frederica, Wilmington," using a process of etching where lines are bitten into a metal plate with acid, then inked and printed. It's all about line here, scratchy and precise. Look how Peets uses the etched lines to build up tone, creating a sense of depth and atmosphere. The textures vary across the surface, from the brickwork to the bare tree, which feels like an explosion of tiny marks. See the spire, how it fades behind the tree, almost ghostlike? The linework is lighter there, softer, giving it a hazy quality. This reminds me of some of the American Scene painters, like Edward Hopper, who were also interested in capturing a sense of place. But while Hopper often focused on the isolation of modern life, Peets seems to be finding a kind of quiet beauty in the everyday. It's a subtle piece, full of details that reveal themselves slowly.