Untitled (Landscape with Goat and House) c. 1930 - 1934

John B. Flannagan made this small woodcut, a landscape with a goat and house, and it’s like witnessing a world being born through bold, graphic gestures. Imagine the artist carving into the wood, each line a decisive act, scraping away at the surface to reveal forms emerging from the dark. You get a sense of his hand in every mark, the push and pull of the knife creating this contrast between light and shadow, a world reduced to its essentials. The house hunches, a sturdy presence amid the swirling landscape. That little goat, though...I can’t help but feel for the goat. What’s he thinking? What’s he looking at? Is he happy in his own personal landscape? Flannagan, like other printmakers, invites us into a conversation about form and content, where the physical act of making is just as important as the image itself. It's all connected; the artist's process is so clear and the landscape emerges in stark, beautiful terms.