The writer Felipe Nóvoa discusses Carlos González’s body of work at the end of the latter’s artistic career, during which this distinguished printmaker-woodcut printer created some very unusual works from 1934 to 1944, when he stopped producing his prints altogether. Nóvoa writes about the artist’s technique and his ability to relate to rural workers and their legends and lifestyle. Nóvoa lauds González’s technique and thematic sincerity; he also indirectly deplores the abject poverty of rural life and critiques artists who paint landscapes as backdrops but fail to observe the social realities of the scenes they are depicting.  

In this article, Felipe Nóvoa (1909–89) writes about the woodcut prints produced by Carlos González (1905–93). This artist, who was basically self-taught, won first prize (the gold medal) at the Salón Nacional in 1943 with his work Muerte de Martín Aquino. Nóvoa describes the printmaker’s ebullient personality and his deep familiarity with the culture of rural Uruguay, which he distills in his works with great skill, in both his monotypes and his woodcut prints. The writer also mentions González’s insistence on showing scenes of desperate poverty, albeit within the framework of his own personal cosmogony. In his review of these works Nóvoa notes the artist’s keen perception and unusually well-developed ability to portray Uruguayan rural workers in the many legends and stories that form the basis of his prints: people who live in small country villages, hardened souls imbued with genuine warmth and humor. He recognizes González’s contemporary command of formal synthesis, and his skillful ability to use the natural grain of the wood, with all its monstrous deformities, in his blocks to express the tough inhabitants of this rugged land. The article includes a measure of social criticism, referring to the cattle drovers, laborers, horse breakers, and fence installers that González depicts as “the bitter reality of large estate ownership,” people the artist shows in “the basic triad of any culture: men, beings, and things,” which Nóvoa compares to other works of art he describes as merely landscapes to be hung as “nauseating backdrops.”