J acobsen achou uma forma que parece fornecer a resposta que procurava. Vem usando a máscara em suas pinturas desde a década de 30. Para êle, entre tôdas, esta face é meio de atingir uma expressão universal. Pode-se muitas vêzes perceber que suas pinturas estão apoiadas em um sentido puramente lírico, e que, apesar de sua semelhança abstrata, lidam com experiências naturais às quais foi concedida a amplitude da visão.
Gunnar lespersen
Observers familiar with pos-war currents in Westem European art will be able to identify Egill Jacobsen's pictures. They belong to the intemational COBRA movement, which derived its name from the initial letters in the three capital cities of Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, and which attaned great significance for the development of abstract-expressionistic painting in the direction of Spontanism. Egill J acobsen was a natural member by virtue of this work, since his spirit and outlook were those of a COBRA painter long before the founding of the movement in 1948. Already by 1937-38 he was painting his first abstract-expressionistic pictures in Denmark, and his work with the spontaneous transformation of mental impulses into colour may be reckoned as being one of the pre-requisites of COBRApainting. Egill Jacobsen's emergence and maturity as an artist took place during the Second World War. When hostilities blocked all channels of communication with the outside world, EgilI Jacobsen and his friends Asger Jom, Carl-Henning Pedersen, Ejler Bille and others allowed an opportunity to shape and to personalize their inspirations undisturbed. Their goal was ambitious yet simple. The painters were striving to reconcile intelIect with emotion. Before their time, the expressionists had made the attempt, and these young Danish artists were naturalIy enthusiastic about their work and inspired by it. However, these artists also realized that their expressionistic forerunners Lad not completely utilized the possibilities of painting, but had hesitated to take the final plunge and give free rein to colour unrestrained. The young Danish artists fel that they coul go further along the path of expressionism and release its unused resources by the aid of ~pontaneity. The painters had the inspired idea of completely projecting their lives into their paintings by making colour the spontaneous expression of everything stirring in the mind and in the subconscious. Rules were to be kept in reserve as an instictive knowledge of what should be done when proceeding freely from colour to colour in the picture tocreate· one's own colouristic composition. The Danish group of artists was made up of some widely differing talents, each choosing his own field according to his capability and bento Egill Jacobsen's work was to epitomize their colouristic experiences. The task felI to him quite naturalIy. Colour was the real thing for him, both means and end at the same time. He always strives in that direction in his paintings. When he alIows himself to be inspired by other art, it is nearly always in the colour that he seeks his inspiration. Colour for EgilI Jacobsen is simply the common denominator which sums up alI experiences. It is the manifestation of the mind's restless fluctuation from light to shade, from the joyful and hilarious to the more depressive. Egill Jacobsen always understands how to reconcile colour contrasts into a common harmony in a natural mauner. It may sound strange - but this painter, whose picturen not so very long ago the impact of an artistic revolt, has harmony as hin aim. With EgilI J acobsen the mask is the carrier of colour. When a viewer tries to come on more intimate terms with his pictures, the question may perhaps arise as to why this very form of the mask has gained ground in this abstract expressionistic painting. The answer must be that modem art seeks its inspiration from the wealth of material in the art of the whole world. In South Seas masks EgilI Jacobsen has found a form which appears to give the answer he was seeking. He has used the mask in his pictures since the late
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