Temple of Pomona c. 1903

This is Joseph Pennell's Temple of Pomona, an etching on paper. I can imagine Pennell standing on the street with his etching plate, trying to capture the feeling of this bustling place. Look at the marks that create the building's facade! Pennell stacks line upon line to create its depth and texture. Then there is a crowd depicted with such immediacy - just a mass of little lines. It's a bit like he's feeling his way through the scene, letting the image emerge bit by bit. I wonder what it was like to make this? Did he have to stop every time a carriage went by? It makes me think about Whistler, who also captured urban life. Artists, they're always looking, always trying to pin down what it feels like to be in a place, at a time. In the end, Pennell's etching gives us a sense of a moment caught on the fly, a little fragment of the world, transformed into something new.