HITTY by Rachel Field 3 1929

Dorothy Lathrop made this image for the book *Hitty* and you can see it's all about line, pattern, and contrast. I love how the stark black ink creates this really dramatic visual space, like a stage set for a play. I can imagine Lathrop carefully placing each line, thinking about how they build up the textures of the doll, the bat, and the girl's dress. Her marks define forms, for sure, but they also create such atmospheric tension, don't they? You get the sense that she's thinking not just about illustration, but about how the very act of mark-making can create feeling, tell a story of its own. It's a conversation across time, where Lathrop riffs on the language of printmaking, pushing it in her own direction. It's all these conversations that make a work of art so alive.