The Mancorbo Pass in Picos de Europa

In these mountains a canal is not a waterway. It is a steep rock gully dropping down a mountainside, and the Canal de Mancorbo cuts the southern face of the Ándara massif, the eastern block of the Picos de Europa, above the village of Argüébanes in the Cantabrian valley of Liébana. The view looks like country nobody goes to. By 1876 that same block of mountain had been worked for zinc for 20 years, ever since a company called La Providencia was set up in 1856 to get the ore out, and there were tracks and workings within a few hours of this spot. None of it is in the picture. Haes painted the canvas upright, which is unusual for a landscape, about 1.7 metres high, and gave nearly all of it to bare limestone, loose scree and a cold sky. The one human presence is at the bottom, a herdsman with his cattle, small enough that you use him to work out how high the rock goes.