Two Sketches of Ridges

Architect Arnold William Brunner's pencil sketches document landscape studies, likely preparatory drawings for architectural or site planning work. The upper sketch depicts a sailboat and distant structures along a waterfront, rendered with quick, economical linework. Below, a more developed study shows a rocky cliff face meeting water, with careful cross-hatching establishing form and shadow. These working drawings reveal the observational practice underlying late-nineteenth-century design, when architects routinely sketched from nature to inform their understanding of proportion, materials, and spatial relationships. Brunner's gestural approach—combining precise detail with spontaneous notation—exemplifies the drawing methods that trained architectural vision during this period.