You notice it in the most iconic films. Typically, there are always shots of a human being or animal, gazing at the horizon. Sometimes with a sad connotation, sometimes in a more melancholic tone, but we've always loved how it makes us feel to look at it horizontally. We even create art that replicates precisely what our eyes offer us. The key question here, though, is “Why does something so everyday/simple fascinate us in such a philosophical/deep way?
Well, in order to answer this, it is necessary to reflect on our lives. The stress levels we deal with are getting deeper and more intense. We sleep badly, we eat badly, we even make love badly? Clearly it is a vicious circle that has not very well defined when it started but we do know the damage it causes us and what we have to pay..... It is an issue that has gotten out of hand. I would even say that it is a way (the tiredness we constantly feel) to end each day or each evening, simply but unmistakably looking up to the sky and contemplating something better....
So sorry to read me as pessimistic but I don't like to lie. We love what a beautiful sunset offers us, precisely because we project peace and calm in the beauty we have before our eyes. Ephemeral, fleeting, a single dose and that relieves our busy daily schedule. For this reason, at any time in our history, we find the horizon as the absolute protagonist of our busy lives. Don't believe me, just look at the staging that David Lynch has provided in “The Fabelmans” and how he himself explains the concept of the horizon in art...
And if something relates minimalism to this element that we can all see anywhere in the world (looking at the horizon) is the ability to enjoy the simple but substantial. A good sigh, silence; maybe a cup of coffee or perhaps a pair of headphones while walking to work are enough to be able to deeply bond with a phenomenon that we cannot stop observing day after day and that accompanies us at any moment of our lives. At the end of the day, that's what we want. A bit of surprise, of different value in an increasingly monotonous, boring and repetitive life?
All photographs and content used in this post are my own. Therefore, they have been used under my permission and are my property.
Personally I think we love it (the sunset and the sky in general) because it reminds us in a way there can be great beauty, no matter what bad things we may be going through. That and the cliche (but true) reminder that we are all so darn small when it comes right down to it. :)
This image belongs to millycf1976 and was manipulated using Canva.