‘Clear Waters’ (1920) reproduced from Martin Andrews, The Life and Work of Robert Gibbings

2003

Central NE1147.6 G53 AJ71. Reproduced by permission of the Robert Gibbings Estate and the Heather Chalcroft Literary Agency

Bicester, UK: Primrose Hill Press

Martin Andrews best describes Gibbings’s use of the ‘vanishing line technique’ in this early wood engraving: ‘Gibbings’s use of [the technique] reached full maturity with his first significant engraving of a figure, Clear Waters of 1920. Here the delicate outline of the body is never defined by a line other than the boundary of one area of highlight with that of shadow; the eye naturally completes the shape by implication and all unnecessary detail is eliminated – it is a lyrical image.’ Gibbings used the technique in much of his early work around the time when he started to become a serious contender in the art world.