Paths run through people as surely as they run through places…I have long been fascinated by how people understand themselves using landscape, by the topographies of self we carry within us and by the maps we make with which to navigate these interior terrains. We think in metaphors drawn from place, and sometimes those metaphors do not only adorn our thought, but actively produce it. [Robert Macfarlane, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot]
Many years ago, when I first traveled to Maine to paint, I was always disappointed when a bank of fog moved in and obliterated the dramatic moment of surf and rocks I was seeking to capture. Now I see this immersion in the vaporous atmosphere as a manifestation of the great mystery of being-materialized. One sees and then can’t quite see. Things seem to move about- hide and then suddenly reveal themselves, only to be lost once again. Is not this an eloquent metaphor of our perception of time? So little of life do we understand; So little do we actually remember.
The fog embraces me, and I am caught within its soft bonds. My thoughts wander, and I attempt to paint this ineffable quality of light and transmuting substance before me. I lose track of time and reflect on the delicate correspondence between my being and what lies before me- the momentary nature of our life, of all things. A great depth lies before me, mirroring my thoughts, temporarily casting aside the veil that obscures my vision-offering a rare moment of clarity.
When I paint, the expanse before me is metaphorically brought into my humble interior- its immensity impossible to hold. Therefore, I must select only a fragment of this vastness. Our perception of reality is subjective. We pick and choose what draws our attention, and the rest just slips quietly away. Never to be seen again. William James reflected on this in his writings on the “stream of consciousness.” We choose our path through time as stones in a river help us to traverse its watery span. I take away but a partial notation of my whole experience. But that note is significant. It is the thing I have chosen for myself- a sign of my own path.
But landscape painting is more than my self-conscious struggle with my fragile, fleeting existence. What I have come away with, the painted image, is also significant. If we allow it, the landscape we move through or the one we experience through a painting mirrors us back to ourselves. We are momentarily magnified and transformed- presenting uncharted possibilities for the artist as well as the viewer. It is, as Henri states,
There seem to be moments of revelation, moments when we see in the transition of one part to another the unification of the whole. There is a sense of comprehension and of great happiness. We have entered into a greater knowledge by it. If one could but record the vision of these moments by some sort of sign! It was in this hope that the arts were invented. Signposts on the way to what might be.
Robert Henri, The Art Spirit, p. 32
