Hawaii XI 1978

Richard Misrach made this photograph, Hawaii XI, with color film to create an image of the Hawaiian landscape. The composition teems with verdant foliage under a thick canopy. Throughout history, dense forests have held symbolic weight. Recall, if you will, classical antiquity’s “horror vacui”, a fear of empty spaces. This finds expression in art as a filling of the void, a means of warding off a primal fear. This image evokes a similar sensation of the wild, untamed and unknown. Think of the European Romantic painters like Caspar David Friedrich, who often placed figures against overwhelming landscapes to evoke feelings of awe and the sublime. There is a primal, almost subconscious connection we have with nature. The thickness of the trees in this image calls up a psychological response, tapping into the collective memory of nature as both nurturing and threatening, and the interplay between the beautiful and dangerous.