The modern approach to Oswaldo Goeldi s engravings marks a turning point in the precarious Brazilian cultural environment of the first half of the twentieth century. His views on degraded city life with its vultures and passers-by, the dedication to the craft and the detail of the woodcutting result in a particularly labyrinthine and poetic works of art. The end of Cartesian dualism forced the artist to promote a whole new attitude. This work aims to reflect on the problem of expression in Goeldi s life; as a poetic phenomenon he was always outside the modernist context and seeking a way to describe the modern Brazilian man through his work. Analysis of his engravings and drawings allows one to perceive artist s energy in his artistic process; his interaction with physical media establishes an approach to material imagination with emphasis on earthly elements. This was a process that Goeldi faced daily in his woodcutting. The association between expression and imagination is fundamental to understanding the creative nature of the Brazilian engraver.