Building

A new addition to the topography of downtown New York was the Trinity Building, occupying a full block between Broadway and Trinity Place. This massive tower was ornamented in the Gothic style, which Marin took pains to detail in the careful pencil sketch he made on this sheet. Later, perhaps indoors, he added light washes to the skyscraper’s facade to give it solidity, yet he realized the thin sketchbook paper would support neither heavier applications of paint and water nor scraping and heavy wiping. Instead, he communicated a sense of energy by lightly skipping the tip of his brush, loaded with blue, purple, and yellow pigments, across the bottom of the sheet. With these simple, nonobjective marks, Marin conjured the dynamism of the street.