Soldiers in the Trenches 1919 - 1920

Andre Dunoyer de Segonzac made this print, Soldiers in the Trenches, using etching, which means he drew into a metal plate with a needle and then bathed it in acid. Look at the sky; it’s a series of very closely drawn lines. That mark-making creates a claustrophobic feeling, like you can’t breathe. And then, if you look at the bottom right, there are these odd, squiggly curving lines, as if things are built up in a very ad hoc way. The artist is showing you that war isn’t just explosions, it’s hours of boredom spent huddled in a muddy hole. De Segonzac’s been compared to Cezanne. But, actually, I see him more as a kind of proto-Philip Guston in his ability to mix mundane subject matter with abstracted and expressive marks. There's an ambiguity here that makes the work feel very contemporary.