Sunset Cities, in the Grand Canyon 1912

Joseph Pennell made this print of the Grand Canyon, sometime between 1880 and 1926, with a needle etching into a plate. Look at the scratching, scribbling marks, and how they suggest that Pennell was not after a picture-postcard view. I imagine him right there in the canyon, squinting, trying to grasp this sublime nothingness, this terrifying expanse. The Grand Canyon is a subject that has been painted and photographed many times, so how to capture it anew? Pennell’s network of marks creates dark, ambiguous spaces, punctuated by eruptions of light and a sky that seems to threaten rain. Did he keep his lines loose, moving around the plate, letting the needle glide, capturing the immensity of the canyon? Think of other landscape painters like Turner and Whistler, who were also interested in the effects of light and atmosphere. I wonder if he was looking at them? Artists are always in conversation with each other. What do you think?