Excerpt from Catalogue of an Exhibition of Etchings by Zorn: March 28 to April 27, 1912

He calls etching his diversion, which accounts for the uniformly high quality of this side of his art. Done for the sheer love of it, as other men would ride horseback or play golf, these plates are the product of a joyousness that is the mo ther of all great art. It is typical of him that he should have taken up the practice'of this exact ing though elusive art merely as an amusement, as he himself says, with which to while away odd hours, instead of sitting at home or going about for entertainment. This is characteristic of his whole life and harks back to the genesis of his artistic career when, as a mere lad, he carvedin birch-wood with his clasp-knife images of the flocks he tended in the Dalecarlian forests.

It is the extreme refinement and subtility in their seeming brutality that give to these plates their unique value and interest. Seldom has a man suggested his predecessors less than does Zorn in these epigrammatic etchings. They are according to no established formula. If he has looked upon Rembrandt, as what practitioner of aqua fortis has not, there is but slight evidence of it in these straightforward vibrant plates. To be sure, he has the same love of bold contrasts of light and shade as had the master of Amsterdam, without the romantic glamour of the dreamy Dutchman. This modern Swede is more direct, more incisive, his line has something of the penetrating and biting analysis of a page from Strindberg, and not infrequently, as in the case of his haunting portrait of the besotted poet Paul Verlaine, there is discernible a sort of ironic humor that throws a revealing light upon his sitter. With what discerning and subtle in sight he has portrayed that gentle flavor of intel lectual skepticism which is the chief character istic of Anatole France; while the head of Rodin, laughing in his foaming beard, is highly in dicative of the immense creative energy of the author of Le Penseur. In every instance he has successfully summarized the essential and abid ing characteristics of his sitter, no less effectually accomplished in the twenty-minute impromptu of Marcelin Berthelot than in the more deliber ately studied portrait of Marquand, or the very succinctly realized version of August Strindberg, the Swedish author. These portraits of contem porary men and women are fascinating records of repeated excursions into the realm of char acter, which holds for Zorn the strongest appeal, as it has ever for all men of the North, whose supreme happiness is the realization of a clearly defined individualism.

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