Haystack Butte, September 1884 is a meditation in muted tones—a landscape halfway between completion and contemplation. The butte itself, sharp and singular, punctuates an expanse of gently rolling plains beneath a sky brushed with soft clouds. The foreground is sketched but not fully painted, lending the piece a raw immediacy, as if the artist paused mid-thought to let the stillness speak for itself. The unfinished strokes mirror the desert itself: vast, ancient, and forever becoming.