Gezicht op ruïnes in Post Street, San Francisco c. 1915 - 1919

Willem Witsen made this print of some ruins in San Francisco. It's hard to say exactly when, but he was working between the 1880s and the 1920s, so there's a good chance it documents the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake. I like to imagine Witsen walking around the city with his tools, looking for the right angle, the right light. Maybe he was thinking about the past, about what had been lost. The image is so soft and hazy, like a memory fading away. Look at the way he’s scratched the lines of those broken bricks. See how the lines are so faint in some places, almost disappearing? It’s as if he’s not just showing us the ruins but also the process of their slow disappearance. It’s a gesture that captures a whole mood: loss, resilience, and the passage of time. It makes me think about Piranesi, and the ways that artists have always been drawn to ruins as a subject, turning destruction into beauty. Ultimately, artists are constantly building on what’s come before, finding new ways to see the world.