Round the Farm
As Spring nears and we momentarily allow ourselves to dream of warmer weather sweeping across the country, my thoughts rest on Grant Wood’s painting of “Spring Turning.” The plowed geometry overlying the rolling low lands of the midwestern states warms and comforts me in these last few weeks of Winter. Flying over western Nebraska, the same smooth flowing yet constrained landscape emerges from the haze of late afternoon sun. Layer upon layer, we see the textures of the rolling terrain with the creases and cracks of hills and streams overlaid by the neatly measured grids of property lines. All this constraint is diluted by the soft shapes of circular irrigation patterns that drown out the rigid lines of order and possession. The control of the landscape creates the illusion that the landscape is a sum of its parts. As we look upward to the aerial horizon, we know better…that the earth is one…the lines and shapes are merely our tools to help our small minds consume its vastness.
The Aerial Horizon 