Eventually it became clear that they were leaving the mountain landscapes behind. Would they recognize them if they passed that way again? (Not that they had any plans to do so). They had folders full to bursting with souvenirs. “I can still see it in my mind’s eye…” ran the stock phrase. But why the mind’s eye in particular? They could still feel it on their faces, in their arms, their shoulders, their hair and heels… throughout their nervous systems. In the glorious evening light of the 20th of January, they wondered at the assembly of silences and air. A drove of mules the size of ants appeared in silhouette on a ridgetop path, moving at a star’s pace. The mules were driven by human intelligence and commercial interests, expertise in breeding and bloodlines. Everything was human; the farthest wilderness was steeped with sociability, and the sketches they had made, in so far as they had any value, stood as records of this permeation. The infinite orography of the Cordillera was a laboratory of forms and colors. In the meditative mind of the traveling painter, Argentina opened before them.
César Aira, An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter
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