After researching landscape paintings and spending a suspiciously long time in front of them at museums, I feel like I have come to very few conclusions about why they exist, how they effect us, and the extension of their honesty. I have done a few quick exercises of making them myself. There is an astounding since of accomplishment in feeling as though you can mimick greatness. Almost like a feeling of conquering a beauty as your own, while simultaneously neglecting to realize the emptyness of your creation in the midst of the real thing.

Drawing is not my thing, really it's kind of like yoga for me; a practice that stretches and slows my mind even though the product rarely reflects the intention. Strange things happen in my mind when I am drawing. I start to see the image as a completely idealized version of what's on the paper. That's when I found the attractiveness of landscape. It's in the illusion. The painter is illusioned of conquest, and the viewer is illusioned of experience. All interest in the actual place is lost and in its place a hope for this imagined image to exist is gained.