Along the Salmon River

It looks like the perfect place to live.... more

by Steve Henderson

Original - Sold

Price

Not Specified

Dimensions

14.000 x 11.000 inches

Title

Along the Salmon River

Artist

Steve Henderson

Medium

Painting - Oil On Panel

Description

It looks like the perfect place to live.

An old, lone barn rests in the graveled banks at a turn of the Salmon River, in western Idaho, USA. Behind the barn, peeking through a copse of trees, is the house – we think -- because from this standpoint we can’t see it clearly. There’s a leaning fence, and the outline of a building, but those trees camouflage much of what is behind them.

Does someone still live here?

Or is this the remnant of an old homestead, established years ago, and lived in by a noisy, happy family that settled in the shadow of the mountains and raised a garden here, kept livestock here?

“It seems awfully close to the river,” we muse. “Wouldn’t this area get flooded? But then again, wouldn’t the person who built the place in the first place take this into account? It’s a simple matter of commonsense.”

(Commonsense, we vaguely feel, was a little more common years ago, when a greater number of people lived in the country and felt more directly the repercussions of their decisions.)

But it is peaceful here, quiet in the embrace of the surrounding mountains. In the midst of summer, the water is at its lowest, and its gentle sound lulls us into tranquil thought.

Because the river is so low, and because the temperature is warm, even in the shadows, we splash (gently; this is not a place to be loud) through the water, wading slowly downriver as we take in the landscape surrounding us.

“So quiet,” we murmur to ourselves. “So remote, and so incredibly beautiful. What would it feel like to live here?”

Along the Salmon River, the artwork, invites us to enter into this still, beautiful landscape and listen to the soft whisper of the current, to imagine ourselves in that house in the copse of trees, to think about sitting on the banks as the sun lowers in the sky and reflect upon a day well spent, making decisions that have meaning to them, and embracing our family in a home that is filled with people who care about one another.

Yes, this looks like the perfect place to live.

Featured in 28 Fine Art America groups.

Uploaded

October 9th, 2018