Taos Plains 1937

Arthur George Murphy made this drawing, Taos Plains, using graphite on paper. The surface is almost entirely filled with the image, leaving just a small margin of paper around the edge. The drawing has a muted, almost monochromatic quality, primarily using shades of gray to depict a landscape under a cloudy sky. The clouds are rendered as large, soft shapes, creating a sense of depth and volume above the flat plain. In the distance, a few animals graze peacefully, undisturbed by the heavy sky. I wonder what Murphy was thinking, gazing out at this scene, his graphite pencil sketching into being the land that he was seeing. Perhaps other artists have looked at this too, from a distance. I wonder, how have they interpreted the land? Each artist leaves their own individual mark, influenced by one another.