Saint Paul's, Fleet Street, London 1905

Joseph Pennell’s etching of Saint Paul’s Cathedral captures this London landmark in strokes of black ink. Look at the hatching marks, almost chaotic in their energy, and how they describe the dome, the sky, and the surrounding buildings. I can imagine Pennell hunched over the plate, tool in hand, digging into the metal, pulling back, and then going in again, building up tone and texture bit by bit. Maybe he was thinking about Piranesi, whose architectural prints also convey the awe-inspiring scale of a city? See how the cathedral looms in the distance? The density of marks creates a kind of atmospheric perspective, as if a rainstorm has just passed, and the air still feels heavy and damp. Pennell knew his way around a printing press; he knew how to get the right amount of ink on the plate to create a range of tones. There’s a push-pull between the clarity of the architectural details and the looseness of the etched marks. It’s this tension that makes the image so dynamic.