Santa Fe Landscape 1945

This is Santa Fe Landscape, a woodcut print by Alfred Gwynne Morang. It's all in black and white, which isn't really about accuracy, it's more about feel, and process. The carving feels deliberate but gestural, with each mark precise yet raw, forming the landscape. The composition, with its tilted horizon and simplified forms, gives it a kind of naive, outsider quality. Look at the foreground, where the lines carve out a tangle of vegetation. There is a real dynamism there, almost like abstract expressionism. It reminds me a bit of some of the American Modernist prints being produced at the time, like those by Rockwell Kent, but with a slightly less polished, more handmade quality. It’s less about a perfect image and more about the act of making.