Horizon Lines

Richard Mayhew
Equinox
ca. 1968
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Doris Ulmann
Corn Shocks and Sky
ca. 1925
platinum print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Antonio Frasconi
The Iced Sound
1958
color woodblock print
Art Institute of Chicago

Philips Koninck
Group of Buildings with a Tower among Trees
1671
watercolor on paper
British Museum

Hall Thorpe
Home
1921
color woodblock print
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Eugène Boudin
Beach Scene at Trouville
1863
oil on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Richard Benson
Stones of Newport
1977-78
palladium print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Harry Callahan
Eleanor, Chicago
1949
gelatin silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

attributed to Luigi Pesce
Cemetery in Meshed
ca. 1860
albumen silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

William Turner of Oxford
Stonehenge: Stormy Day
1846
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Heinrich Kühn
Mary Warner and Edeltrude on the Brow of a Hill
ca. 1908
autochrome
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Vincent van Gogh
La Crau from Montmajour
1888
drawing
British Museum

John Constable
Hampstead Heath
1830
watercolor on paper
British Museum

Judy Dater
Self Portrait at Craters of the Moon
1981
gelatin silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Jan van Goyen
Dune Landscape
ca. 1630-35
oil on panel
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Stephen Shore
Giverny (plate VII)
1981
dye imbibition print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

    Today there is the constant clatter of a backhoe or steam shovel coming from the hillside across the road and down a bit, where they are doing something to the dirt around the new house they have been putting up.  It is a hot day.  Another noise is the hum of a fan in the room.  The little cat is asleep, stretched out on her side, pressed up against me.  A dog, not my dog, is asleep outdoors, stretch out on his side in the shade. 

    Since I am being asked why, in general, I write, I can ask specifically what, exactly, was the purpose of writing that last paragraph, including the backhoe and the small cat? 

    Maybe I wanted to write that because I wanted to evoke this moment of this day – clatter of backhoe, hum of fan, cat lying here, dog lying outside – so that I could make it permanent.  Maybe I wanted to take that reality I perceived with my senses and filter it through my brain and onto the page and let it stick there.  I thought of saying that I wrote it so that I could remember this moment later when I read it, but that is not true, since I don't think in such pragmatic terms about writing, unless I am writing in a diary specifically to remember what happened that day. 

    Also plausible might be that I write it so that I can present this picture or moment to someone else, share my immediate present, not be alone in my immediate present.  But I think that's not exactly it either.  It is really so that I can have the pleasure of writing parallel sentences about parallel animals, describing on the page in parallel terms how I see two animals in parallel postures – indoors, outdoors – because this can be seen on the page whereas it can't be seen in reality, since one can't see both animals at once, lying prostrate in the heat, both appearing to be tired, even exhausted, unable to move, though we know from experience that they are not, they could spring to their feet immediately and run off, full of energy, if they chose to. 

    I want to write this, and have written this, but whether I will include it in this essay I don't know.  It is one thing to want to write something, and go ahead and write it, and it is sometimes another thing to want to show it, and in what form. 

– Lydia Davis, from Into the Weeds (Yale University Press, 2025)