The summer season earlier than turning seventy, Georgia O’Keeffe (November 15, 1887–March 6, 1986) left her residence in New Mexico and got down to fulfill her childhood dream of visiting Peru. Upon returning residence, she recounted the expertise in letters to her most intimate good friend, present in Lovingly, Georgia: The Complete Correspondence of Georgia O’Keeffe and Anita Pollitzer (public library) — that fount of perception into her internal life, which gave us her fierce knowledge on art, life, and setting priorities.
With a puff of the unphotographable, she writes.
There’s something oddly unreal and dreamlike about it. — The times had been so fantastic — it was so stunning one was usually left speechless — and by night time one thought perhaps it wasn’t actual — perhaps it was a dream — it was desert of all colours — and sizes — little hills, huge hills — mountains — all of sand — or naked rocks — mountains of rocks as we consider it.
Ascending to 16,500 ft into the mountains of Peru, she discovered her vibrant love of the American Southwest eclipsed by these landscapes past all creativeness:
Up there within the heights there was essentially the most astonishingly stunning coloured earth I’ve ever seen. I hate to come clean with it however the pure surroundings is method past something I do know on this nation.
[…]
The whole lot in Peru ultimately appears to be a peak. The desert is extra desert — the mountains are extra excessive —
Nothing captivated her greater than Machu Picchu and its surrounding panorama:
The nice wreck of Machu Picchu… is in essentially the most stunning inexperienced sheer mountains — Whenever you stand up to the sundial — essentially the most holy place — a river roars throughout it so that you at all times hear it what appears to be not less than a mile beneath and a peak rises up above the large wreck, throughout the river — terraced in order that I wouldn’t dream of attempting to go up it — it’s so sheer — the mountains had been to me extra fantastic than the wreck. The best Inca stone work is magnificent — highly effective in feeling — precise in execution — for me the best factor I noticed from the hand of man.
However O’Keeffe understood that these transcendent, unphotographable encounters with magnificence and grandeur usually are not reserved for the distant wonders of the world. In one other letter to Anita, she writes:
I consider one can have as many uncommon experiences on the tail finish of the earth as in civilization if one grabs at them — no — it isn’t a case of grabbing — it’s — simply that they’re right here — you may’t assist getting them.
Beforehand: The Unphotographable #4: Iris Murdoch’s Portal to Transcendence, from the Sea to the Stars
