Destroyers in Wet Basin 1945

John Taylor Arms made this etching, "Destroyers in Wet Basin", on a plate sometime in the mid-20th century. Just look at the level of detail achieved! The way that Arms has used hatching and cross-hatching to build up tone is so precise, it almost feels like you could reach out and touch the cold metal of those ships. The reflections in the water are particularly striking. It’s like a whole other world exists just beneath the surface, a ghostly echo of the industrial landscape above. Look at the way the lines blur and distort, creating this sense of movement and ephemerality, a contrast to the solidity of the ships. Arms dedicated himself to printmaking, exploring architectural and industrial subjects with similar meticulous attention to detail and technical skill as someone like M.C. Escher, but with a very different sense of atmosphere. For Arms, I think it’s about showing us the beauty in these enormous, powerful structures, and he embraces the inherent ambiguity of the medium.