Street View 1920

Kmetty János made this drawing, Street View, with charcoal on paper, and what strikes me is how the artist is unafraid to let the process show. The marks are raw, direct; you can almost feel the pressure of the charcoal against the paper. Look at the roofline of the building on the left, how it's not a perfect line, but a series of staccato marks that build up the form. There’s a real tension between the dark, weighty foreground and the lighter, more atmospheric background. The textures created by the charcoal—the smudges, the hatched lines—give the drawing a tactile quality, like you could reach out and feel the grit of the medium. It reminds me a little of some of the early expressionist landscape drawings, where the artist is trying to capture not just what they see, but how they feel. There’s an honesty here, a willingness to embrace imperfection, that I find really compelling.