Studio: international art (76.1919)

The Etchings of Georges Gobo

that drawing can express—a language, moreover,
of greater intensity and richer in colour. " My
engravings," he says, " are just sketches bitten
by the acid into zinc plates, which I regard as
so much white paper, to be thrown away if the
drawing fails to ' get going,' but not to be pre-
served at all costs simply for the reason that it
adds one more to my list of etchings completed."

With him there is no fuss about processes
or finicking methods ; he has no thought save
for the most absolute freedom in the expression
of his ideal. This ideal is the life around him,
which he sees and loves exclusively from the
painter's point of view. He chooses his subjects
there, where life is to be seen intense and spon-
taneous. He stops to watch the labourer at work;
makes his way through the markets thronged
with picturesque, mobile types ; lounges along
the quays at the big seaports ; mingles with
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the sailors, the simple, strong, energetic folk ;
watching the slow passing of processions in
which the individual is absorbed in the crowd.
And if at times he yields to the temptation to
let the masonry of a building or the rigging of a
ship have predominance over the human form,
it is simply because, their essential decorative
qualities apart, the play of light and shade
appears to give them a life of their own.

Of this vision of men and things he finds a
graphic translation which adapts itself exactly
thereto. Neglecting insignificant detail in favour
of the whole impression, his needle runs over the
plate, confining itself at times to bare suggestions,
or at others dwelling forcefully in order to accen-
tuate the shadows, to throw up the relief, ever
seeking not only to give form by its modelling,
but also to catch the movement of the object.
So his draughtsmanship knows nothing of the