The powers of observation

 One of the world’s great essays is Guy Davenport’s “Geography of the Imagination.” He says: 

Imagination is the way we shape and use the world, the way we see it.

The essay is on how imagination is used in seeing. Davenport was one of those people who noticed things, who paid attention, who actively used his imagination to find things. The essay includes a section on Grant Wood’s famous painting “American Gothic,” a portrait of a farmer and his wife (if you follow Davenport) or daughter (if you follow the Art Institute of Chicago) in front of their house in Iowa.

Many of us have looked at the painting. Davenport taught me to see it.

Did you notice the Gothic spire in the background? It’s a protestant church steeple.

Did you see trees in the picture? There are seven, the number of columns in King Solomon’s Temple.

The house itself is balloon-frame construction, invented in 1833 by George Washington Snow. Plans for these houses in the Carpenter Gothic style were sold in pattern books. Houses in this style were built across the country. The bamboo curtains were sold through the Sears Roebuck catalog.

The essay speaks of eyeglasses, buttonholes, overalls, cameos and Scots shepherd’s jackets. If you want a lesson in noticing, this is where to start.

I was reminded of the essay by a photograph of a contemporary petroglyph in a Utah canyon. The image is of a young Navaho, posing between a saddlehorse and a pack animal.

E.T. Collinsworth, who has compiled a book on mules, looked at it and gave a description that was worthy of Davenport. Among other things, he said:

• The pack animal is a horse, not a mule. You can tell by the ears.

• The proportions of the saddlehorse were so carefully rendered that the artist must have been proud of it.

• The saddle, from swells to stirrups, is traditional Southwest. It might have been passed down by an elder.

• The Levi 501s are extra-long so they can be turned up and cuffed at just the right length to hang properly in the stirrup.

• The enormous wild rag is not for work on the trail but for attracting female attention. (I thought it was a bandana. But E.T. says a bandana is smaller and kept in the hip- pocket. A wild rag is worn around the neck and has many uses on the trail, including protecting the face from cold and blown dirt and filtering water from a muddy hole.)

• Everything about this fellow in the petroglyph suggests a skilled horseman except the hitches that secure the pack on packhorse. E.T. has said this more than once: “Boy Scouts and sailors tie knots. Packers throw hitches.” The hitches in the petroglyph are not up to the otherwise high standards of the rig and outfit.

Some people like to watch TV or go to movies.

I like to listen to someone observe and comment. It’s an art form.

• Source: Guy Davenport, The Geography of the Imagination; San Francisco: North Point Press, 1981, p. 4.he proportions of the saddlehorse were so carefully rendered that the artist must have been proud of it.