Tuonela, 1934

Wien 152 iii/iii. Wood engraving on laid japanese paper, full margins. First edition of 60 from the second block. Signed, titled, and numbered 15/60 in pencil. 

10 ¼  x  7 ½ inches   |   26  x  19.1 cm

Landacre created a second wood engraving of Tuonela, perhaps due to a cracked block or his dissatisfaction with the first one. In this second version he sought to refine, reduce, and distill the purity of the California landscape. He eliminated the shading on the trees, water reflections, and details in the mountains, visible in the first block.

The wood engraving is based on a drawing (illus.) Landacre made of a southern California landscape, but for the artist, it evoked the mood of a musical composition, ‘The Swan of Tuonela’ by Finland’s Jan Sibelius. The fictional Tuonela, from a Finnish mythological poem, is guarded by a swan in “a large river of black waters.” Landacre sent an impression of Tuonela to Sibelius, along with

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