When you look at something closely in the landscape, or in a museum or sitting on an artist's easel, how much do you actually see at first glance?

Between now and Friday, November 25, Wildlife Art Journal is offering a free subscription  to anyone who can correctly identify the subject of the image (it has an official name) in the picture, above.  Note:  those who have any relationship to the image, personally or professionally, do not qualify.

Send your answer via email to editor@wildlifeartjournal.com

Meantime, here are clues....check back...more will be posted

Hint number 1:  It shares something in common with the slickrock canyons of the American Southwest.

Hint 2:  The main protagonist has something to do with the following opening lines to a poem:  "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore..."

Hint 3:  It is neither a horseshoe crab, nor fossilized raptor, nor satellite photo of the Earth by NASA, nor microscopic flake of paint, nor eyebrow on a camel, as some have suggested.  Yes, as a few readers have noted, it has something to do with a raven (re: the allusion to Poe above).  One must think of an object with two parts that form a whole ostensibly to last for eternity.

Hint 4: The creator envisioned this as the lid of a sarcophagus, but the artisan wasn't a Roman, Greek or Egyptian.

Hint 5:  Artist and raven are birds but of different feathers.

Hint 6:  The statement is profound though carried forth by a silent messenger.

Hint 7:  It is not a bas relief of a corvid, nor a play on Huginn and Muninn from Norse mythology, nor La Chusa, the witch bird, as some readers have surmised.  You can locate it at roughly 43 degrees N latitude and you may also find its maker's work in the archives of Wildlife Art Journal.com

Only three more clues until this version of "What Is It" closes  at 8 am mountain time, Friday, Nov. 25 in the US.  So far, one person has won a free subscription to WAJ.

Hint 8:  It is a stone carving.

Hint 9:  You can reach more about the artist by clicking here and here.

Hint 10:  The name of the artist is Steve Kestrel and his artwork is in the permanent collection at the National Museum of Wildlife Art.  Follow the museum on its Tumblr blog.  The latest blog, by yours truly, happens to be about Kestrel's masterpiece 'Silent Messenger.'  Read about it by clicking here .