La Rue Mirebeau, Bourges 1925

This is La Rue Mirebeau, Bourges by Louis Conrad Rosenberg. It looks like he made it by etching into a plate, maybe copper, and then using ink to pull the image onto paper. I can imagine Rosenberg standing in this old street, squinting, trying to capture the light as it hits the buildings, watching people pass by. There’s so much detail in those buildings, all those lines, but also these big, dark shadows, giving it this kind of mysterious feeling. The way he uses these dark marks to create shadows and depth, well, you can almost feel the coolness of the stone and the narrowness of the street. It’s like he’s inviting us to step right into his memory of being there. I think about other artists like Piranesi who also loved to draw buildings. Artists are always in conversation with each other! They create a sense of space in the picture, not only with perspective but with light and dark, a kind of feeling. You could spend a lot of time just looking, just dreaming, right?