Pamplona 1928

Francis Dodd created this etching of Pamplona, probably in his studio, by biting lines into a metal plate with acid, then inking and printing it. I can picture him hunched over a table, lost in concentration. The whole scene is rendered in a warm monochrome, with the steeples and towers of the city rising up from behind the solid wall. It’s as if he's trying to capture the essence of a place, not just its appearance. He’s made the sky and the distant mountains seem to shimmer with a nervous energy. I’m drawn to the neat rows of fields in the foreground, each one carefully etched with tiny lines. This is a landscape meticulously recorded, but somehow, the artist has imbued it with his own emotional register.