The Na’vi feature in much of Levitt’s work. Their silent and unbothered bearing in each scene, and the mere fact that they’ve accepted him as a witness to their travels, lend each piece a privileged air, as though the viewer were the first to gaze at virgin frontier.

It’s led some to compare him to the painter of American frontier life, Frederick Remington. There are, of course, aesthetic similarities, but there are also important differences. Like Cole and Hughes, Remington painted for a romantically inclined audience, and imbued his scenes with plenty of mythology. Levitt is a strict naturalist. And in Remington, men are the focus of the eye — men bronc busting and surveying and charging, men mastering the landscape. In Levitt, Na’vi and landscape share the stage equally. Your eye is drawn to a pair of hunters and their direhorses, but they’re as much a part of the landscape as they are an object of focus.

The effect, Levitt says, is deliberate.

“The Na’vi are one with their surroundings. Not figuratively: literally. Because of Eywa, they’re linked to each tree and stone. Their horses are linked to each tree and stone. I could make them the focal point of every picture, but that’s not who they are, and if you’re not trying to capture that then you’re just dicking around.”