Interior of Chartres 1926

Donald Shaw MacLaughlan made this etching, Interior of Chartres, with a wonderfully delicate touch. See how the cathedral emerges from a haze of lines? I imagine MacLaughlan standing in that grand space, squinting, trying to capture the light filtering through those stained-glass windows. What a task, right? I bet he was thinking about how to convey the sheer scale of the place, the weight of all that history and stone. There’s a real push-pull here. Look at those columns – each mark seems to search for the solid form, but then dissolves back into shadow. It reminds me of Piranesi, but with a softer touch. It's like he's saying, "I can't quite grasp it, but I can feel it." And isn’t that what art’s all about? This piece reminds me that artists are always in conversation, wrestling with the same old problems of light, space, and feeling.