Interiors I: Family Reunion 1984

Peter Milton made this etching, Interiors I: Family Reunion, and you can see how he’s scratched into the plate to create this whole world. It's like a memory palace, right? He uses this intaglio printing process, where the ink sits *in* the lines, not on top. Look close and you can see the paper's been pushed around, embossed by the pressure. I love how the scene is both super detailed and kind of hazy at the same time. Take the group of people outside, they are like figures in a dream. The artist has used a lot of fine lines to create areas of shadow, and then scraped back the image to create areas of bright light. This gives the whole picture a sense of depth, both physically and metaphorically. It reminds me a little of Piranesi, and the way he used etching to create these impossible architectural spaces. In the end, art is always about possibilities, not certainties.