My work in black and white includes pencil, charcoal, and pen and ink. Although for some artists and art lovers, non-color artworks are not as powerful or pleasant as color images, for me the black and white sketch or rendering often explains deeper structural components of a subject or transmits deeper ideas about a figure or scenery.  The connection of these two dimensions with moral questions and heroism and virtue since Antiquity is present in the design of temples and shrines to the deities and to the conviction that such a discourse of forces in a statue or structure, when visible, would make the inhabitants of a city more virtuous as well. The following black and white images display wide varieties of themes and subjects that I have drawn or watercolored in greytones or black and white during many years, usually with the heroic or devotional element present in my hand as I drew.

 

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Below, according to certain architectural guides to Rome, this gateway to eastern Rome -- Porta Maggiore -- received its name from the fact that one of its thoroughfares leads directly to Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the great Seven Churches of the city.

The charming Baker's Monument to Eurisace, a very wealthy freed slave who lived
around 30 B.C. and made a prosperous living from this trade, My pen&ink homage to this site  Porta Maggiore and its connection not only to the Baker's Tomb but to
several of Rome's aqueducts -- Aqua Claudia and Aqua Anio Novus -- which both"piggy-back" on each other to ride their waters into Rome at that point!
"piggy-back" on each other to ride their waters into Rome at that point!