A recent (relatively) painter (now dead) named Eric Sloane produced the painting below. Apparently he had this idea that our 18th century rural predecessors had more awareness than we did. That seems rather silly on the surface of it although certainly a finer, more intimate knowledge of the environment probably would have an impact on things like memory, the capacity to notice subtle variation and other such things but, if true, the relevant factor wasn’t that these people lived in some golden age, because I betcha there were a bunch of dudes and dudettes during the 18th century with little or no “awareness” even as defined in the above linked “more awareness” article. Still, the point of Sloane’s philosophy seems to have been that the required resourcefulness of New England farmer folk, the required attention to detail and change over time, the necessary far more intimate knowledge of environmental resources than most have today, the capacity to utilize manual skill and think creatively about limited resources, all of these factors would have made some folk more aware than the norm today. These environmentally required skills taken together with the possible impact they would have had on memory, etc and it might be cobbled together into a supportable position of  ”more awareness.”

As an aside, apparently Eric had 6 wives. Interesting. I understand why he thought a lot about awareness.

These images are not representative of the totality of his work (which was huge). He also had a thing for barns and airplanes, but since I don’t have a thing for barns and airplanes and do have  a thing for clouds and sky, this is what you get.

Clouds over Marsh Land

High Tide

Sky City

Spring Sky