Until today I felt guilty when I looked at a sunset or tree and thought, "That's as pretty as a painting." How steeped in culture, how indoors, to look at nature and think it's almost as good as what's meant to represent it.
But today when I was looking at trees and rocks distorted in the reflection of the river, I thought of this quote:
"If you want to judge a good photograph, ask yourself: Is life like that? The answer must be yes and no, but mostly yes."
In representation, the world is made strange. We're surprised into remembering how lovely it is.
Sometimes the world makes itself strange, without help from a camera or paintbrush. Ice turns trees silver... sunset colors highlights a cloud yellow, shadows it purple...
Water turns trees to squiggles. Beneath it, sunlight's converted into amber-colored ribbons on rocks.
Water turns trees to squiggles. Beneath it, sunlight's converted into amber-colored ribbons on rocks.
If there was a world beneath the surface that looked like that, I would have jumped in. In the movie of this blog post (it's been optioned), I do jump in, and pass out from hypothermia, and have a two-hour dream sequence where I'm in a world of squiggly trees. Like Alice, or Mickey:
Maybe its the coffee I'm drinking, but this post makes me comfortable being alive in the world you describe. Thanks. I needed that.
ReplyDeletethe pictures remind me of van gogh. maybe he just painted what he saw in water reflections and tricked everyone into thinking he was creative. im going to start painting the reflections in people's glasses. (they probably wont notice while im doing it)
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