De windmolens 1880 - 1926

Joseph Pennell made this print of windmills at an unknown date using etching. Imagine the artist, bent over a copper plate, carefully drawing with a sharp needle through a waxy ground. The whole image is a dance of light and shadow, isn’t it? Pennell uses line to define form, but also to suggest atmosphere. It’s like he’s trying to capture a fleeting moment, the way the light hits the water, the way the clouds gather in the sky. You can almost feel the breeze coming off those windmills. And those windmills, they’re not just objects, are they? They’re like characters in a play, each with its own personality. The way they loom over the landscape, they’re almost menacing. It's as if they're in conversation with one another, sharing secrets in the wind. Pennell, like many artists, was fascinated by the changing face of the modern world. He saw beauty in the everyday, in the industrial, in the structures that shaped our lives. It makes you wonder what he would have made of our world today, with its skyscrapers and smartphones and self-driving cars.