The wide blue sea
It is said that mankind originally came from the sea. It makes sense – why else would human beings the world over gravitate towards the coastlines during their holidays? Why else would sailors spend their lives floating over a hostile environment, growing old in the salt spray and brutal sun of the ocean? The sound of the ocean is like a lullaby – some speculate that we find the sound so relaxing because it reminds us of the womb, of the soft susurrus of our mother’s blood in her veins and the rhythm of her heartbeat. Pictures of the sea, scientists say, are immediately relaxing, bringing feelings of peace and well-being to the audience. Others report that the ocean makes them think of adventure, of travel to faraway places on other shores, of freedom that landsmen can’t even imagine. Evoke all these feelings and more when you decorate a room with a painting.
The desert
Algebra was invented in the desert. So was alcohol, and astronomy. The desert is an inducement to thought, freeing the mind to wander where it may not have gone before. The wide sky opens the mind, sending it along new paths, leading to surprising insights. The people of the desert say that the desert wind does not care what man does, or what man thinks. The desert does as the desert wills, and nothing we can do will ever change that. An old poem perhaps best describes the relationship between Man and the desert. In the poem, a traveller finds two feet of stone in the desert with the inscription: 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing else remains of the statue, or the city it once occupied. Deserts are a helpful reminder that time stretches backward as well as forward, and that our time here is brief. There are so few environments that really challenge us these days. We go from air-conditioned homes to air-conditioned offices, riding in air-conditioned cars in between; it’s not surprising that the power of nature comes as a surprise when it happens. Remind yourself of the power of nature with a desert-themed canvas print from the Landscapes & Scenic collection.
The mountains
Rearing starkly above the landscape, clothed in greenery and snow, a mountain is a glorious sight indeed. These ancient behemoths have stood in the same place since Man first banged one rock on the other to create fire and may survive long after Man has disappeared. Their beautiful, stern faces have seen the sun rise and set a million times, have seen the coming and going of ice ages many lifetimes long, and yet they endure. Through fire and storm, and the passing of ages, mountains endure, unchanging and eternal. Sometimes people need to be reminded that there is something that lasts forever – or at least, forever as much as humans can grasp the term. When you need to know that the world goes on, that there are things that do not change, a canvas print may be just the thing to decorate a room with.
The grassland
Many people spend their lives in cities, closed in corridors of concrete and steel, with only a sliver of sky to be seen. Their lives are closed-in on themselves, work to home to work, never seeing beyond that sliver of the world. Outside the cities, however, there are lavender fields that stretch as far as the eye can see, grassland and savannah so open that you can see the curve of the planet itself. The images portrayed in these canvas prints and paintings evoke a feeling of freedom, of size and vastness, that can drag the mind out of its rut and into newer, freer channels, free to roam beyond the cities and the concrete towers into a world you may never have imagined. Free your mind to wander wide-open spaces in our Landscapes and Scenic collection of canvas prints.