You know the standard desktop picture that comes with Windows XP? The rolling green hillside and blue cloud-streaked sky? I happen to love the thing. The scene reminds me of a farm in Oregon’s Applegate Valley where I spent some happy times (the picture was actually shot in Sonoma County, California).
What’s nice is the harmony—a visual harmony between the angle of the clouds and the roll of the hill, but also a harmony between man and nature. It’s obvious that this is a domesticated setting—the green hillside has been mown, and there are traces of a road at its base—but the human touch enhances the setting, rather than blighting it.
Here’s something I also love: the statement in the ads for satellite TV companies that you need “a clear view of the southern sky” to get service. How poetic—who wouldn’t want that?
And what makes these two examples even nicer for me is that there’s no particular intent to sell you anything or to “be” poetic. Like a shaker chair or a Korean pojagi (cloth used to wrap gifts), they’re everyday things that rise to the level of art.