Artist: Robert Mullinex

I haunt a couple of "art per day" sites. I love this form of exploring. I subscribe to a "plant of the day" site, and NASA's "Astronomy Picture of the Day" which is awesome in the original meaning of the word!

Today, a landscape painter named Robert Mullinex came up, and I was very moved by his work. His images of Northeastern secondary forest remind me of walking through the woods - not only in Ohio where he lives, but New Jersey, Massachusetts, parts of New York, and most of all, Connecticut. These are not idealized landscapes of virgin forest, but accurate depictions of what is forest now. And it still is beautiful and complex.

One thing I have been noticing while looking at current landscape painters, is how often they paint very small. Mr. Mullinex's work tends to be 5"x18", wide and short. Another painter I was looking at yesterday worked on what looked to be 8.5" x 11" board - the same size as a letter.

In last week's disasterous LANDdraw, I could not figure out what my view should be limited to. Because that's part of it - the limit of the edge of the page. How do I choose what in the VAST landscape to focus on? What tiny slice captures the sweep?

One of the things I like about Mr.Mullinex's work, is that he uses a tight view. On another site he says,

I am interested in the relationship between photographic and hand-painted imagery in the perception of visual information.

The camera only shows about sixty degrees (I think, please correct me if I am wrong!) of the visual field - a thin slice. Looking at his work, and the work of other artists, should help me in the field, to narrow my vision.

We speak often of the benefits of a large vision - landscape seems to be about the narrowing of that. That is, in my view, a good thing. In a time where are constantly urged to be more, to think big, and to "step outside the box" - landscape calls us to take a step back, and to really focus on the smaller view rather than the big picture. Landscape reminds us that we are not all conquering, that we are not the biggest thing out there. That call, that acceptance of smallness in a big world, becomes a way to balance the outsized demands that are placed on us - and to allow us the space to operate on the human scale, rather than a superhuman one.